Twitter tattle
Editorial 

Published September 1, 2022 

TWITTER, the social media platform loved and used by journalists, dissidents and activists worldwide, may in fact be quite unsafe for them if recent revelations made by the company’s former security chief Peiter Zatko are to be believed. One allegation in particular has prompted considerable concern in the Pakistani security establishment: the Indian government apparently infiltrated Twitter’s security system through an operative. Mr Zatko believes this agent very likely accessed sensitive user data because of Twitter’s weak security infrastructure, which is reportedly plagued by obsolete servers and vulnerable software. Mr Zatko also claimed that Twitter’s executive team knew “that the Indian government had succeeded in placing agents on the company payroll”, but never informed users. According to another company source, it is widely believed that the Indian government had previously also interfered or attempted to interfere in Twitter’s internal workings.

Indian attempts at espionage using Twitter’s systems have far more serious implications if viewed as a whole with the other revelations made by Mr Zatko. According to the former hacker, Twitter’s internal controls are allegedly so weak that sensitive information can easily be accessed by rogue elements working for other countries. In fact, just earlier this month, a former manager employed by Twitter, Ahmad Abuammo, was convicted by a US court on six criminal counts for spying for Saudi Arabia, including acting as an agent for the country and trying to disguise a payment from an official with links to Saudi Arabia’s royal family. These developments paint a startling picture for those who frequently use the platform for communication and information. Clearly, anyone who can be targeted for expressing views that run contrary to powerful interests should be wary. Twitter collects quite a lot of personal information from people who have accounts on the microblogging platform, and this information can easily be misused if it falls in the wrong hands. When viewed in hindsight, attempts to infiltrate social media companies, the recent blockage of Twitter handles operated by Pakistani diplomatic missions, the systematic erasure from social media of critical voices from occupied Kashmir as well as an ongoing disinformation campaign functioning on the back of social media and aimed at discrediting Pakistan present a sinister picture of how Indian authorities intend to misuse social media for their ends. Twitter has a responsibility to satisfy Pakistani authorities and demonstrate that it remains committed to the safety of the people who use its service.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2022

PAKISTAN FLOOD
Aid for pregnant women

Editorial 

DAWN.COM

Published September 1, 2022


IT is a serious matter: the due date for approximately 73,000 of the over half a million pregnant women affected by the floods is this month, while around 577,000 others are set to give birth later. With access to medical facilities and personnel, including birth attendants, cut off at many places, it is uncertain how they and their families will cope at the time of delivery and after. Even under normal circumstances, access to healthcare for women, including those who are expecting, remains a big challenge in Pakistan. The statistics speak for themselves. The maternal mortality rate, according to the United Nations Population Fund, is 186 deaths per 100,000 live births — it may be an improvement over past years, but it is still higher than the statistics for many other developing countries. In normal circumstances, pregnant women have to bear with untrained midwives or rickety medical facilities at decrepit government hospitals where professional healthcare is near absent and wrong advice is often dispensed. The trauma of pregnant women in times of disaster then can only be imagined. It is a living nightmare for them — mentally and physically. Many of them are doubly at risk of contracting water-borne infections and being further malnourished with access to food limited at best. Those with complicated pregnancies face even greater hazards.

Besides the danger to the women themselves, there are also concerns for the health of the newborn infant. Babies born in these appalling circumstances will show the effects of poor nutrition and may contract birth-related infections. There is an urgent need for the authorities to take note of the looming threat and provide medical and nutritional assistance to pregnant women who have been affected by the floods. A comprehensive and well-managed plan must be drawn up quickly to render all possible assistance to this vulnerable segment. Given the experience of recent years, it is clear that climate change has come to stay and coping mechanisms for victims of natural calamities, especially women and children, must be put in place.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2022

Geopolitical chessboard

Javid Husain 

Published September 1, 2022 

MOMENTOUS developments spearheaded by China’s dramatic rise, growing Sino-US rivalry, an assertive Russia, and the emergence of new centres of power in Asia, Africa and Latin America are reshaping the global geopolitical chessboard. These developments portend the advent of a multipolar world in place of the bipolar world marked by US-USSR rivalry during the Cold War and the relatively brief period of US unipolarity after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

It is evident that as China and other emerging economies in Asia catch up with the Western world in terms of economic and technological strength and military power, the centre of gravity of global geopolitics will shift to Asia. The next two to three decades would witness this transition. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2017 forecast that by 2050 China at a predicted $49,853 billion will account for 20 per cent of the world GDP. Both China and India ($28,021bn) will be the first and the third largest economies in the world with the US relegated to second position. Out of the 32 largest economies in the world, it is predicted that 12 will be from Asia with a cumulative GDP accounting for 44pc of the world GDP. The share of the GDP of the US and EU in world GDP will be reduced.

With the increase in economic strength, Asian countries’ military power is also likely to witness rapid growth. It is expected, for instance, that China’s military expenditure would exceed that of the US by 2035, posing a serious challenge to American supremacy in both the economic and military spheres. Other countries such as India are likely to follow suit, thus fuelling regional disputes. It follows therefore that the Indo-Pacific region will be the main arena for competition for global supremacy and regional hegemony, leading to growing tensions and localised conflicts in the area, especially in the East China and South China Seas.

The convergence of the interests of the US and India in containing the expansion of China’s power and influence will strengthen their strategic partnership pushing Pakistan closer to China to maintain a strategic balance in South Asia. One can therefore anticipate growing tensions between China and India, on the one hand, and between India and Pakistan, on the other. US-China rivalry will also lead to growing competition between the two countries for influence in Africa and Latin America.



Policymakers here often misread the foreign landscape.

As the Ukraine conflict shows, an assertive Russia will flex its muscles in the years to come to block Nato’s eastward expansion and to strengthen its security in its near abroad, especially the Caucasus. Growing tensions between the West and Russia have already strengthened strategic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing and the process is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.

Geopolitics is a brutal game played by nations for power and influence in pursuit of their perceived national interests. This power play is cloaked in moral and legal arguments wherever possible to make it palatable to domestic and foreign audiences. In the modern world, economic strength and scientific and technological advancement are the most important ingredients of national power and provide the base for the development of military power.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s policymakers have often misunderstood the play of geopolitical forces at the global and regional levels and ignored the dictates of realpolitik to the detriment of national security and economic interests. We have overemphasised the military dimension of security at the expense of the economic one instead of pursuing a comprehensive appro­ach to national security with due emphasis on its po­­litical, econo­m­­ic, military and diplomatic aspects.

The pursuit of overly ambitious foreign policy goals and the preponderant role of the security establishment in our polity have impoverished us economically, endangered our national security, and led us to the present stage of strategic exhaustion marked by slow economic growth, widespread poverty, political instability, and overdependence on foreign doles for economic survival. Our India and Kashmir policies, in particular, lack realism and suffer from strategic confusion.

It is imperative that we anchor our foreign and security policies in sound strategic realities at the global and regional levels. Further, we need to reorient our external policies gradually towards Asian countries in view of their growing importance. Above all, we must build up our national power, especially economic and technological strength, instead of relying on foreign crutches or merely on legal and moral arguments.

The writer is a retired ambassador and author of Pakistan and a World in Disorder — A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.

javid.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2022

Pakistan's history of disasters and the lessons we fail to learn

All hazards are natural and all disasters a result of unjust anthropogenic interactions with nature.

Mansoor Raza 

DAWN.COM

Published August 31, 2022

LONG READ

It is now common wisdom that all hazards are natural and all disasters a result of unjust anthropogenic interactions with nature.

Though the most recent flooding is different in nature compared to the one in 2010 — the latter was a flash flood while the current is a riverine flood — in both cases, it can be argued that the damage caused by both disasters is the outcome of changes in demography as well as ill-advised development policies across Pakistan.

Some of the more immediate outcomes of the latest disaster will be felt in the form of displacement, rise in illiteracy, unemployment, health crises, water and food scarcity, infrastructure damages, loss of human lives, destruction of crops, livestock losses, water-borne diseases, outward migration to cities and loss of social capital.

Faced with these multi-faceted challenges in such a short period of time, humanitarian and relief agencies must act and adapt rapidly to mitigate the problems faced by the millions of people who have been impacted in recent weeks. But are we ready to do so? Have we learnt any lessons from our long history of disasters?
Pakistan and disasters

Pakistan is vulnerable to most natural hazards. It is prone to floods, earthquakes, droughts and cyclone storms. It is prone to famines and heavy monsoons. And let’s not forget the other kinds of disasters that its inhabitants inflict upon each other — the scourge of terrorism.

Over the past 17 years, Pakistan has witnessed three major crises — before the current one — that have cumulatively impacted almost 28 million residents. While the nature and scale of these crises were different, two of them were caused by natural hazards — the 2005 earthquake, which impacted 3.5 million people and the 2010 floods that affected more than 20 million people.

A third disaster, born out of the evil machinations of the humankind, was the 2008-2010 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) crisis. This was triggered by an internal conflict and displaced almost 4.2 million people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and what were then known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

As per media reports, 89 per cent of the people who were displaced chose not to stay in refugee camps arranged by the government. The remaining were housed in camps located in Swabi, Mardan Charsadda, Nowshera, Kohat and Peshawar. Almost 50pc of the IDPs were children and 90pc had lost all their assets (including livestock, crops etc).

But for the sake of brevity and the constraints of space on this platform, let us focus our thoughts on natural hazards that may not have turned into disasters. Both the super floods —the one is 2010 in general and the most recent one in particular — did not strike Pakistan in a single day; rather, they built up over several weeks.

For instance, in 2010, the flood started from Balochistan from July 22, 2010, and then within a span of one and half months, the gushing waters had inundated several towns and villages of Sindh. This provided ample time to the Sindh and Punjab governments to ready themselves for the impending disaster and ensure they had enough resources to mitigate any crisis.

It was almost déjà vu in 2022 — and yet, no lessons had been learnt. After all, disaster management is more about preparedness than response.

A similar script was witnessed in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake when the falling debris, unauthorised construction, change of land use and dwellings in the hazardous zone converted the hazard into a disaster of biblical proportions.

Media reports following the earthquake put the death toll anywhere between 87,000 and over 100,000. Another 138,000 were injured and over 3.5 million rendered homeless.

According to official statistics, the deceased included over 19,000 children — the majority due to collapse of school buildings. The quake itself damaged over 780,000 buildings, including 17,000 schools and several hospitals. Around 250,000 livestock also perished.
Floods … again … and again

According to the Federal Flood Commission, Pakistan has witnessed 28 super riverine floods in its 75-year history. The first recorded super flood was witnessed in 1950, followed by 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1995 and then every year since 2010 — which also saw the worst flood in the country’s history. These floods collectively affected 616,558 square kilometres of land, snatched 13,262 precious human lives and caused losses worth over Rs39 billion to the national economy.






The area compromising modern day Sindh, in particular, has a long history of recurring riverine floods. In the 19th and 20th centuries, floods hit the province’s geographical territory at least18 times.

Data is not available for the years of 1882, 1887, 1903, 1914, 1917, 1921, 1930 and 1948. In 1973 alone, however, 259,586 acres of crops were affected in eight districts — Jacobabad, Sukkar, Nawabshah, Khairpur Mirs, Larkana, Hyderabad, Dadu and Thatta.

Two years later, another super flood impacted 1.13 million people. The next year, heavy rains caused yet another flood and around 28,260 villages were affected, 3,276 people displaced, 9,087 cattle were lost and 99 people lost their lives. Similar stories of damages have been reported in 1978, 1992, 1994 and 1995.

What is particularly interesting to note is that though the province has a centuries-old history of natural disasters, successive post-independence governments have largely have been less responsive to this reoccurring phenomenon and failed to act in a proactive manner.

Flash floods — which are quite sudden and are often caused by a cloud burst in the mountains — are also not new to the country.

On July 23, 2001, for example, record monsoon rains lashed Islamabad, as well as the districts of Mansehra, Rawalpindi and other towns and cities across Pakistan. The resultant flooding killed at least 350 people and injured another 150.

Some 125 people remain missing to this day and at least 1,500 families were rendered homeless. The most seriously affected area was the Mansehra district, where more than 200 people were killed and around 1,000 houses destroyed. A large number of cattle in this largely rural area also perished, and parts of the roadway also collapsed, making it difficult to reach those in dire need of assistance.

Apart from Mansehra, the other affected areas were Dader (Shinkiari) and Buner districts, which were struck by flood waters and landslides. At Dadar Qadeem, at least 200 homes collapsed or were completely washed away.

Narrated below are the some of the reasons — only tip of the iceberg — that transform a traditional hazard of floods into a horrendous disaster as seen in recent times.
Population explosion

In 1981, the country had a population of 84.25 million, which jumped to 207.7 million within a span of 36 years — an addition of 127.2m (or 3.53m per annum). The country is passing through the third stage of demographic transitions, where both the birth and death rates are declining.


There is also a gender component associated to demography, particularly in Pakistan, where the female population growth rate is higher than males.

The total population of women in 1951 stood at 15.5 million (46.22pc), whereas in 1998 it had moved up to 47.1m (48pc). The intercensal increase in 47 years, meanwhile, stood at a whopping 302.36pc.

The 2017 census recorded a female population of 101.3 million — 48.7pc of the total population. Notwithstanding the gendered aspect of this population growth — which we will pick up on a little later — this phenomenal rise is compelled to utilise the natural resources beyond their carrying capacity, thus challenging the notion of sustainability.
Development policies

In his seminal work that correlates Pakistan’s development policies and its environmental issues, The Environmental Repercussions of Development in Pakistan, Arif Hasan along with the late journalist Amenah Azam Ali, states that development brought about by the colonial regime in India had four main objectives:Exploit existing natural resources to serve the needs of industrialisation in Britain

Increase agricultural production in response to the demands of industry and domestic consumers in Britain

Prevent the development of an indigenous industrial sector in India, and limit or destroy existing industrial activity

Increase the revenues of the empire

After independence, the Government of Pakistan continued most of these policies as a result of which a large percentage of natural resources, such as forests, lakes and mines, were taken over from the old feudal order and local communities and became the property of the state, thus making their large-scale commercial exploitation possible.

One example of deforestation would substantiate this argument. Around 4.91pc of Pakistan’s land is covered in forest — among the lowest in the region.

The percentage of Pakistan’s forest area is, however, not without contestation, with the figure varying between 2.2pc and 5.1pc. What is important to remember is that trees along the land-water borders serve as the first line of defence against any incoming water streams.

Besides deforestation, another major cause of flooding is the lack of regular maintenance of canals and bunds, which in turn reduces their carrying capacity and causes water spills onto the adjourning lands.

Recent media reports and video footages from across the country have highlighted the instability of various bunds. A similar situation was witnessed in the 2010 floods, where in Sindh alone, there were several breaches due to the enormous pressure of gushing waters.

In many cases, the roads and commercial infrastructure developed over the last 30 years is less sensitive to the traditional pathways of water flow — blocking it and devising alternative flows creates a back pressure effect — resulting in flooding of the adjoining settlements. Similarly, encroachments on the mouth of the river outlets in the southern parts of the country has reduced the water flow which again results in flooding.

The colonial masters never allowed human settlements on katcha lands [riverbeds] as these are primarily meant for the overflow and residual water by the Indus during the monsoon floods. The post-flood alluvial soil, being rich in nutrients, acts as a natural fertiliser for the crops, so the use of katcha land was primarily related to agricultural purposes. The land is now dotted with commercial establishments and hamlets, which are the first to be inundated every time it floods.

Relevant observations

Based on 13 years of experience on disaster management and its related issues, here are some of my observations on the current scenario for a comparative outlook with the previous calamities:There are marked differences in the pattern of occurrence of disasters — their frequency, typology, and location: frequency has increased manifold, intensity has increased and spatial distribution of impact is wider

More people are affected; there are more deaths, displacement and damage to property
The effects of a single disaster can be felt across political boundaries

More people in high-risk areas prone to natural hazards, and development plans are increasingly failing to tackle this problem

Expenditure on reactive mode of disaster management (in relief and rehabilitation) has increased greatly

Countries in the subcontinent show wide disparities in terms of how the issues of disasters are addressed, though the impact of any disaster does not respect the political boundaries — the smog in eastern and western Punjab is a case in point.
Disaster management — the approaches

The current disaster management regime in Pakistan has its roots in the response to the 2005 earthquake which involved the private sector, civil society and government institutions. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Pakistani government created institutions responsible for disaster preparedness and response at the national, provincial, and local levels.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was meant to be responsible for policy-making and coordination at the national level. At the provincial level, the respective Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) were mandated to set up a system that would immediately spring into action in the aftermath of disasters and calamities — whether natural, man-induced, or accidents.

The current thinking on disasters and their management skills falls into two main paradigms — the conventional and the alternative.

The former is in turn influenced by natural science and applied sciences approaches. The natural science approach equates hazards and hazardous events and also perceives disasters as synonymous with hazards. It emphasises research into geophysical and hydro-meteorological processes. Disaster management activities focus on monitoring of hazards and prediction of hazardous events.

The applied science approach emphasises documenting and analysing losses and damages associated with hazardous events. It determines the magnitude of a disaster in relation to the magnitude of the losses incurred. Initiatives influenced by this approach focus on research into the exposure and resistance of physical structures.

In contrast, the alternative paradigm is based on a combination of social science and the holistic approach. The social science approach brings vulnerability into the disaster management discourse.

It links disaster to vulnerability, which is a degree of the lack of capacity of households, communities and societies to absorb the impact of hazardous events and recover from them. This approach maintains clearly that hazards are natural but disasters are not. It also shows that the magnitude of a disaster is related to differential vulnerability between and within communities. Differences in age, gender, caste and class are among the factors making different groups of people more or less vulnerable to disasters.

The holistic approach is an important constituent of the alternative paradigm. It maintains that disasters are closely related to unsustainable development. It maintains that risk scenarios are combinations of capacities, vulnerabilities, losses and hazards. The holistic approach regards disasters as socio-economic hazards.
Role of media

Experience shows that the media has a very important role to play not only during, but also in the pre- and post- phases of disasters. It is also a well-established fact that mass communication systems organise themselves under the disciplines of the market.

They produce and manufacture news items, articles, editorials, features and so on and package them in a way that it creates a sustainable market among a large and growing audience. The masses for the mass media are a market. Information becomes a commodity and readers or viewers become information consumers.

From the normative perspectives, it can be argued that the media has to act as a public interest institution by putting forward public concerns and interest. The media’s convergence with disaster management efforts needs to be grounded in initiatives to inform educate and empower communities with the relevant knowledge for influencing public action and policy towards disaster preparedness and mitigation.
Gender issues

Various studies have found that women account for more than half of the 200 million people annually affected by disasters across the globe annually. The degree of vulnerability to disasters varies according to socio-economic influences.

Gender is a significant factor among these, with the majority of the gender-related disparity in the experience of disasters arising from the different roles and responsibilities men and women undertake in their day-to-day lives. In most South Asian societies, women have almost the entire responsibilities for maintaining the household — they are responsible for providing food and water as well as taking care of the sick and the old.

In the case of a disaster, irrespective of the losses and trauma, women still have this responsibility. Disaster managers’ lack of awareness of gender differences has resulted in insensitive and ineffective relief operations that largely bypass women’s needs and their potential to assist in mitigation and relief work.

The most important issue deserving emphasis is that contrary to popular perception, women are not helpless victims but display great strength in extreme situations. They possess skills, resilience and extensive knowledge about appropriate coping strategies, but their capacity remains largely invisible.

Operationalising the alternative paradigm

Infrastructure destruction figures provide a good sense of the long-term consequences of a catastrophe as we have seen in events as varied as the Sumatra floods, the Indian floods, Haiti earthquake and the Iran (Bam) Earthquake.

To mitigate the ongoing disaster of floods in Pakistan, the following steps must be taken on a war footing, as disaster response is all about timely action:Though there is visible donor fatigue in the global North, the international media must be tapped in to raise awareness about the scale and the intensity of the present day calamity
Foreign embassies need to be energised for targeted fund raising. They need to be made accountable against the set targets
In the same vein, it is suggested that the funds collected for the Dam Fund be released for relief and rehabilitation
All hazard mappings by various organisations need to be in the public domain
Simultaneously, in the flood-affected areas, district level teams must be made operational for needs assessment and identification of would-be beneficiaries
In the floods of 1973, the administrative apparatus was agile and responded efficiently to the catastrophe. In the 2005 earthquake and the 2010 floods, civil society played an instrumental role. For genuine and not-so-genuine reasons, by 2022, both the arms of the disaster management regime have lost their zeal. It’s necessary to provide the humanitarian sector enough autonomous space so it can play its due role
Helicopter operations and sorties need to be made operational without any delay
Instead of tents, roofing kits (bamboos, tarpaulin, ropes) must be procured from local sources and from neighbouring countries to provide temporary shelters to the displaced
High power water trash pumps need to be transported to the sites where water remains stagnant
Gender-segregated raised platforms need to be constructed immediately as reports of more riverine floods are making the news to meet the eventuality
Meanwhile, the NDMA needs to facilitate respective PDMAs for a comprehensive, compact, composite and a consented rehabilitation plan
Above all, land use plans of the affected areas need to revisited and guarded from all violations. That will protect the affected population in the long term form the nature’s wrath. The flash floods’ path ways need to be cleared of all encroachments
The relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction enterprises need to respect the local ecological format
Women play a significant role in all stages of disaster and climate risk management. Gender specific requirements need to be given priority and care needs to be provided to the care givers
Market forces have the tendency to capitalise and make profits on a disaster and its destruction. The sudden rise in prices of tents is a case in point. This vulture mindset needs to be reined in through legislation and administrative measures

If history can be a guide here, the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction will take a minimum period of three years. A lot of civil society veterans are of the opinion that if the Economic Affairs Division and other administrative setups can ease their procedural requirements from the civil society organisations, it would accrue to the benefit of the people of Pakistan.
The need of the hour

The high population growth has put tremendous pressure on the resources of the region. The 90s were characterised, in particular, by declining public expenditures on the provision of social services, such as health and education, due to the increasing number of people in South Asia. This phenomenon of population growth has taken its toll on natural resources as well, which is now working against intergenerational justice and is bound to invite the wrath of nature.

The development mindset of the planners is, at best, insensitive towards their environmental obligations and treats the ecology as a mere commodity. The market-based economy does not account for the cost of ecological destruction and the natural habitats are taken for granted.

On the other hand, a shift in paradigm is needed from a reactive to a proactive mode of disaster management to alleviate the sufferings of the community. The dominant approach to dealing with disasters, which offers no space for community-based initiatives — since it sees communities/victims, as part of the problem for which solutions need to be worked out — is not very appealing.

There is, therefore, an urgent need for a marked shift in this paradigm. A middle- and long term community-based disaster preparation enterprise is the best response. This is what history teaches us. This is what we must heed, lest history continues to repeat itself.

Header video: An aerial view of flood affected areas in DI Khan in August 2022. — Video courtesy: KP CM House

The author is a PhD scholar, peripatetic, Karachi-based academic and board member of the Urban Resource Centre (URC), Karachi. He can be reached at mansooraza@gmail.com

15 years on, officials responsible for Shershah bridge collapse in Karachi evade justice
Imtiaz Ali Published September 1, 2022

Rescue workers gather at the site of the collapsed Shershah bridge 

in this file picture taken on Sept 1, 2007.—Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

KARACHI: Despite passing 15 years to the collapse of a major portion of the Shershah bridge, multiple probes initiated by the police, communication ministry as well as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have failed to yield any positive result and provide justice to the families of six persons who were killed in the incident on Sept 1, 2007.

While a manslaughter case was registered on April 7, 2010 on the directives of the Supreme Court in which the accused were acquitted by a sessions court in 2012, another FIR was lodged by the FIA in April this year against a former chairman of the National Highway Authority (NHA), a director of a textile mill and three others pertaining to the collapse of Shershah Bridge.However, despite registration of the FIR, the FIA Agency has so far failed to take action against any of the nominated suspects.

Sources linked the registration of the case and then the stalled investigations with the political developments in the country that saw the change of the government and leadership at various law enforcement agencies.

A senior FIA official, who is familiar with the case, told Dawn that the nominated suspects had neither joined investigations nor approached any court for bail before arrest.


FIA makes no arrest despite lodging FIR in April against ex-NHA head, four others

Official papers reviewed by Dawn suggested that an FIR (15/2022) in connection with the 15-year-old incident was lodged against ex-chairman of NHA retired Major General Farrukh Javed, ex-member NHA Raja Nousherwan, ex-project director of the Karachi Northern Bypass Flyover Yousaf Barakzai, Khalid Mirza of ECIL and Naveed Mirza of the Paracha Textile Mill on the complaint of the then chairman of the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission.

The sources said the case was registered in Karachi but top FIA authorities had transferred the investigation to agency’s Islamabad office on April 29.

The official papers stated the suspects, said to be extremely influential, allegedly allowed construction of the faulty flyover despite timely warning by the experts concerned that the bridge must be demolished and redesigned correctly as inherent faults could not be solved through remedial measures.

The FIA said that ‘faulty design’ of the bridge was made to protect land of the textile mills.

The official papers revealed that the said suspects having “criminal intentions and common objective by means of fraud knowingly/deliberately” soon after realising the inherent fault in the design of KNBP wilfully constructed the defected flyover on the small piece of land of Paracha Textile Mill for its protection.

The FIA mentioned that M/s ECIL Pvt Ltd got prepared a ‘faulty’ design and NHA insisted on construction of the bridge on a small piece of land although more land was required for construction of safe bridge. “Due to faulty design, ill-conceived structure and criminal negligence of the said accused persons, the bridge collapsed.”

The FIA came to the conclusion that the accused persons committed criminal negligence and caused wrongful monetary losses of over Rs427 million to the NHA and corresponding wrongful gain to ECIL and Paracha Textile Mill and their act constituted the commission of offences under section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.

Chronology of the events showed that the bridge was formally inaugurated by then president Gen Pervez Musharraf on Aug 6, 2007, which collapsed within a month i.e. on Sept 1, 2007.

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu notice of the incident in 2010, and directed the Sindh police to register an FIR and also take action against officials responsible for not registering the case immediately at time when the incident took place.

Subsequently, the SITE-B police registered the case on the order of the apex court after a lapse of two years and seven months in April 2010. A final charge sheet was submitted and charges were framed against the accused in the same year.

However, a supplementary charge sheet was submitted by the then DIG-Investigation Iftikhar Husain Tarrar, which placed all the accused in the Column-2 of the charge sheet with blue ink, not sending them for trial. Thus, the accused were acquitted by a court in 2012.

However, in 2015, a three-member SC bench took up this matter on an appeal and noted with deep regret that “despite lapse of almost seven years from the date of collapse of the bridge and almost four years from the date of interim order of this court, nothing has been brought on record to show any legal process that was initiated per direction of this court culminated into its logical conclusion”.

As the apex court did not absolve any of the private respondents or any other person charged with professional incompetence, criminal neglect and or breach of public duty, then chairman PM Inspection Commission Islamabad retired Lt Col Saifuddin Qureshi submitted a complaint before the FIA on June 10, 2016 to initiate an inquiry into the Shershah bridge collapse.

The Corporate Crime Circle of the FIA-Karachi registered the FIR against five persons on April 12, 2022 after conducting a thorough inquiry into the incident.

However, the investigation of the case was transferred from Karachi to Islamabad on April 29.

NED professors’ inquiry

A team of senior professors of the NED University of Engineering and Technology along with other experts had conducted an inquiry on the orders of the then prime minister. The then chairman of Department of Civil Engineering and current Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodi told FIA investigators that they had come to the conclusion that ‘the reason of the physical collapse was indeed an implementation of ill-conceived structural system and design thereof. However, notwithstanding the physical collapse due to faulty structure design, the criminal neglect on the part of NHA in discharging its duties fiducially shall, however, remain the root cause of collapse of the Paracha Chowk Box Girder Bridge, as the NHA ignominiously failed to ensure implementation of the project’, according to the official papers.

No third party opinion sought when defects became apparent

The FIA said the construction of the Shershah bridge started in year 2003 and ‘abnormal behaviour/defects of the bridge’ were observed in year 2006 and the work on the bridge was stopped.

ECIL designing firm visited the site along with company director Khalid Mirza. Subsequently, NHA Islamabad GM Design Asim Amin, and Iqbal-ul-Haq, a hired consultant of the NHA, visited the site as well.

They met with Ms Majida, the design engineer of ECIL, who informed them that the ‘record pertaining to design calculation has been misplaced and not available with them’.

The NHA consultant suggested to ECIL that ‘remedial measures will not likely solve the problem’.

The expert proposed to demolish and redesign the bridge correctly as ‘repairing and rehabilitation measures will waste good money’.

However, despite these warnings and suggestions, the then NHA Chairman, Maj Gen Farrukh Javed chaired a meeting in Karachi on Oct 26, 2006, which was attended by ‘all stakeholders’ and ordered National Logisitics Cell to immediately start ‘the rehabilitation work’ at Shershah Bridge. The FIA papers said that during this meeting, Mr Amin suggested to avail the expertise of Brig Dr Jamil who was serving Engineer-in-Chief Branch GHQ.

The FIA said that the accused Mr Nousherwan instead of approving the note/proposal, wrote ‘NFA’ (No Further Action) on the note sheet.

The FIA in its inquiry regretted that ‘unfortunately no third party opinion was sought and ultimately segment of Shershah Bridge collapsed’.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2022

A Russian shipping engineer who dumped 10,000 gallons of oil-polluted water off the Louisiana coast and lied to the Coast Guard has been jailed for a year and a day

sjones@insider.com (Stephen Jones) - Yesterday

A ship's engineer who dumped polluted water in the sea, then lied to Coast Guard, has been jailed.
The Russian admitted making false statements and entries in the ship's oil log, per the DoJ.

A chief engineer who deliberately let about 10,000 gallons of oil-polluted water to leak from his cargo ship has been jailed after admitting he lied to the US Coast Guard and destroying documents to cover up the incident.

Kirill Kompaniets, the chief engineer of an unnamed bulk carrier, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, and fined $5,000 for discharging oily waste and obstructing justice, according to a statement released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday.

The incident occurred between March 13 and 14 last year when the engine room flooded during efforts to repair a problem with the discharge of clean ballast water, according to a DoJ release. The commercial vessel is registered in the Marshall Islands.

Kompaniets, a Russian national, and another unnamed engineer, then dumped the engine water overboard, without using a device intended to separate the oil, as required under pollution prevention rules, per the DoJ. They also failed to record the discharge in the Oil Record Book as required.

The incident, which happened while the ship was was anchored near the Southwest Passage off the Louisiana Coast, was first reported to Coast Guard by a crew member on social media, per the statement.

In a court filing cited by the DoJ, Kompaniets admitted to making false statements to the Coast Guard that concealed the cause of the incident.

The chief engineer also admitted to destroying printouts from the ship's computer alarm sought by the agency; entering a false record in the Oil Record Book; directing subordinates to make false statements, and to delete evidence from their mobile phones, per the DoJ.

In the factual statement filed alongside the guilty plea, Kompaniets admitted to preparing a document aimed at discrediting the whistle blower.

Alongside the prison sentence, handed out by Nannette Jolivette Brown, chief judge of the US District Court Eastern District of Louisiana, Kompaniets was ordered to serve six months of supervised release and a $200 special assessment, per the DoJ.

Kompaniets could not be contacted for comment.

Stratford Festival play speaks to the resilience of Indigenous children surviving

 residential school

Wednesday


A play about a fictional residential school in northern Ontario is currently in previews and will have its world premiere on Sept. 11 at the Studio Theatre in Stratford, Ont.

The play, titled 1939, was co-written by Jani Lauzon, a Métis playwright, and Kaitlyn Riordan, who is non-Indigenous. Both Lauzon and Riordan live in Toronto.

The play takes the audience back to the year 1939 when five students of a residential school are anticipating a visit from King George VI, Queen Elizabeth’s father.

Students at the school will perform All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare for the king, but they balk at the ideas of how it should be performed. Reluctant to be defined by colonial expectations, the five Indigenous students are keen to put their own spin on the play and find connections to their own realities.

Lauzon is hoping one of the play’s takeaways will be that audiences become aware of the resilience of the students and how strong and witty they were.

“It’s really about myth busting for me as well, in terms of non-Indigenous audiences,” Lauzon said. “It’s just to bust some myths because we wanted to shine a light on how resilient the students had to be in order to survive and what they did in order to survive.

“The one big myth I just want to bust up and just throw some dynamite at was this belief system that we were incapable of love and loving our children. And, if anything, I hope it’s one thing audiences really come away with is the ability to bust that myth.”

Riordan said she and Lauzon wrote the play for a range of audiences.

“First and foremost, I hope the work honours survivors,” Riordan said. “That is my Number 1 hope for the work, for survivors, for intergenerational survivors and for those who didn’t survive and their families. My further hope to that is also that people like me who didn’t learn about this history in school will go away with more knowledge and that knowledge will be tied to these incredible characters, these five students, who wound their way into their hearts for a couple of hours.”

The play will run until Oct. 29. Tickets are available at www.stratfordfestival.ca

“Kaitlyn and I have been working with Stratford to reach as many Indigenous communities as possible,” Lauzon said. “Our goal and our desire is to have in the audience Indigenous and non-Indigenous people sitting side by side. And it’s going to take some time to develop those relationships. As an organization Stratford is going to have to be committed to the long-term goal of making that happen.”

A positive step towards that goal is the fact a space for reflection is available next to the Studio Theatre for audiences following performances of 1939.

The reflection space features an installation by Tom Wilson titled Fading Memories of Home. It wasn’t until his 50s that Wilson, a Mohawk musician, artist and writer, found out many of the details of his Indigenous ancestry.

A reflection space had also been available last year following Stratford Festival performances of The Rez Sisters.

Lauzon said festival officials were keen to include the space again after 1939 performances this year.

Stratford brought back Wilson's "beautiful exhibition" of a series of wooden desks that were specially made with photographs of his family embedded in them, Lauzon said. “And then there is a video component on a video screen in the shape of a chalk board and then two paintings that he’s done side by side. It’s a beautiful extension I would say.”

Kelly Fran Davis, a Six Nations member who is a professor of Indigenous histories and cultures at Wilfrid Laurier University, facilitates discussions in the reflection space.

“She’s really amazing in leading discussions around very complicated issues of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships,” Lauzon said.

In a news release promoting 1939, Lauzon said: “We are having conversations around Cultural Intimacy and using circular communication to transform the way we create theatre.”

Lauzon said she chose the phrase ‘cultural intimacy’ to describe the process of conversations around reconciliation.

She said the theatre world has various ways of supporting sexual intimacy in pieces.

“What we don’t have is how do we talk about the content of cultural specificity and how do we find ways to talk about that to best support the theatre projects that we’re working on,” she said. “Especially when there is a combination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors. So, I’ve just coined this phrase ‘cultural intimacy’ because I want to start to shine more focus on the importance of that.”

As for circular communication, Lauzon explained that in theatre there is often a separation between all of the departments that work on a play.

“What I like to do is bring everybody that is part of the project in, especially on the first day, so that we all have a chance to just sit together in circle and to really get to know each other and to understand how everyone intersects with the play,” she said. “And by doing so we get a sense of the fulsome of the team and who is in involved.”

Windspeaker.com

By Sam Laskaris, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

I was paddled in school 37 years ago. Why is the practice reviving?

S.C. Beckner - Wednesday

As children all over the U.S. are heading back to the classroom, a Missouri school district and a North Carolina county are reinstating the use of corporal punishment. Nineteen states, including Missouri and North Carolina, allow for this type of discipline.


I was paddled in school 37 years ago. Why is the practice reviving?© Provided by NBC News

Corporal punishment can be defined as a school employee having the right to spank or paddle a child as a form of punishment to stop or modify undesirable behavior. Such behavior varies in severity from skipping class, inappropriate use of a cellphone, tardiness, violating dress codes, talking back to staff and faculty, bullying or taking a trip to the bathroom without permission.

This type of discipline is illegal in military training facilities, juvenile detention centers and as punishment for a crime — but children can still be struck in school.

Corporal punishment should not be considered acceptable in schools and has been on a decline since the late 1970s, according to a 2016 study. Still, too many students face the possibility of being hit or spanked. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that during the 2017-2018 school year, that number was more than 70,000. Any push to add to that amount is dangerous, potentially leaving lasting psychological and emotional damage to a child.

It’s been 37 years since I was paddled at the age of 13 after running away from the residential, Christian school I’d been sent to by my parents for being emotionally out of control and refusing to attend school. The man who hit me with a wooden paddle — air holes drilled into the end for a “better swing” — was a hulking church deacon in a three-piece suit. He stood at 6 feet, 4 inches tall with broad, Neanderthal-ish features in comparison to my less than 5 feet-90 pounds waifish frame. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” he said, followed by, “I’m doing this because I love you, little one.” Then came the first swing of three that lifted my body, bent at the waist over the back of a chair, off the floor. Large, knotted, blackberry-blue bruises rose on both sides of my buttocks, preventing me from sitting for days.

Missouri school district reinstates corporal punishment

Duration 1:36

View on Watch

States were given the power to allow corporal punishment in schools following the Supreme Court’s 1977 Ingraham v. Wright decision. It determined that the Eighth Amendment clause to the Constitution, which prohibited “cruel and unusual punishments,” didn’t apply to students enrolled in public schools. Children from preschool to 12th grade could be spanked or paddled in school.

Of the 19 states where corporal punishment is still legal, more than half are located in the Bible Belt region, a part of the country recognized by predominantly conservative politics and largely influenced by Protestantism. During the 2015-2016 school year, more than 92,000 students were paddled. The vast majority of the incidents happened in the Bible Belt.

Biblical Scripture referred to by some Christians explicitly instructs the use of physical punishment where children are concerned. One version of the Bible reads, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” (Proverbs 13:24 NIV). This proverb blossomed into the “spare the rod, spoil the child” idiom. The Scripture and the idiom are considered foundational in supporting physically disciplining a child.

Organizations and professionals have continuously spoken out against the use of physical violence as discipline in schools for a variety of damning reasons. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for the ban of corporal punishment in schools since 2000, citing the increased risk of “negative behavioral, cognitive, and psychosocial” impacts, along with the poor emotional outcomes for students who are paddled in school.

According to the World Health Organization, corporal punishment “triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Children experience pain, sadness, fear, anger, shame and guilt, and feeling threatened also leads to physiological stress and the activation of neural pathways that support dealing with danger.” So, the use of physical discipline as a means of temporarily stopping or altering undesirable behavior has long-term consequences.

If those reasons weren’t enough to protect children in schools, Black students, male students, and those with disabilities were disproportionately subjected to physical punishment in school, according to a 2018 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that looked at corporal punishment data from the 2013-2014 school year.

How can this still be happening to children in 2022? Aren’t they faced with enough these days in the classroom? I am not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for their actions. Absolutely not. Children learn much of what is socially permissible in school among their peers and in the classroom with their teachers — spending one-third of their 24-hour days in public school spaces. However, in an age when bulletproof backpacks are on the back-to-school shopping list, when our children have to take cover under their desks during active shooter drills — or even more tragically, they’ve witnessed school violence — students shouldn’t have to worry about being spanked or paddled by school personnel. Our children deserve better.

SUMMER FUN IN SASKATCHEWAN

'We all believed he was possessed,' says boy who witnessed exorcism at Sask. Bible camp

Jason Warick - Yesterday 

As Parker Bond's parents drove him home from Redberry Bible Camp through the midnight darkness, the 14-year-old boy wouldn't stop repeating the phrase, "Jesus is lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is lord."

Parker and the other boys in his camp cabin had just been subjected to an exorcism. They were so terrified they called their parents to rescue them.

But the boys weren't afraid of the camp worker who yelled and drew crosses in water on one boy's forehead, or the staff members who were present. Parker said he and the other boys wanted to escape the demons that had infiltrated the camp.

"It was all real.… we all believed he was possessed by multiple different demons," Parker said of the July 13 exorcism.

"They said it was a spiritual hotspot. That's why there had been all that demonic activity there."

Parker and his mother, Marci, agreed to an interview with CBC News Wednesday afternoon. It followed two days of conversations with the family about the best way to allow Parker to share his story. Marci Bond was present at all times during the interview inside their home just west of Saskatoon.

Parker and his mother say the exorcism was traumatic. They're also angry about the four days of indoctrination, sleep deprivation and exhaustion that led up to it, and that it appears to have been promoted, or at least sanctioned, by multiple, top Redberry camp officials, they say.

"As a parent, it's pretty scary that you drop your kid off on a Sunday, he has one set of thoughts and beliefs. You pick him up on Wednesday and he's not the same kid," Marci said.

CBC has requested interviews with Carlos Doerksen, the man who performed the exorcism, along with Redberry's executive director Roland Thiessen and board chair Wayne Dick. None of them have returned the interview requests.

Dick previously said the camp was taking the incident seriously and investigating.


Redberry Bible Camp is located north of Saskatoon.© Don Somers/CBC
Man who did exorcism calls self an 'apostle'

Parker Bond attended Redberry Bible Camp in 2019 and was looking forward to his first camp experience since the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions.

He arrived at the camp, one of Canada's oldest, along with dozens of other kids on July 10. The hours-long late-night lectures about being a "true Christian" and the signs of "demonic possession" began immediately from the man placed in charge of their cabin, Carlos Doerksen.

Unknown to parents, Doerksen had a recent history of pornography and drug addiction, domestic violence and firing from his previous job as a camp counsellor, all detailed on Doerksen's own Facebook page. The 24-year-old said Jesus saved him two years ago and now describes himself as an "apostle" who can speak directly to God.

The boys were told to constantly watch for signs of demonic possession, which included flickering lights, certain "evil" TV shows or even mild feelings of anger, Doerksen said.

They'd listen to Doerksen until 5 a.m. CST, sleep a bit and then head out for a full day of outdoor activities.

"It was hot that week," Parker said.

Parker said that by Wednesday, demons were the only topic of conversation in the cabin. They were all anxious and on constant lookout.

Related video: Sask. boy describes exorcism he witnessed in cabin at Bible camp

Duration 1:45  View on Watch

The Wednesday evening exorcism wasn't the first one performed in their cabin, Parker said. That same morning, one boy admitted he had played with an Ouija board. Carlos performed a short exorcism on the boy, yelling and speaking in tongues before declaring the demon purged, Parker said.

After they returned to the cabin Wednesday night, Doerksen told them that a void is left inside someone when a demon is banished. That void must be filled with goodness, or seven demons will quickly return, Parker said.

At some point, a boy collapsed on the cabin floor, Parker said. That's when Doerksen began another exorcism. It was roughly 10 p.m. Parker said all the boys cowered silently in their sleeping bags.

"He had a jar of water. He would dab a little bit on his fingers and put a cross on the kid's forehead, and then he started speaking in tongues and then saying things like, 'Filthy spirit, leave this vessel! In the name of Jesus, leave this boy!' He would alternate from speaking in tongues to commanding the demons to leave," Parker said.

Parker said he didn't want to be there, but stayed because he didn't want the demon to escape.

Parker said Redberry executive director Roland Thiessen eventually came into the cabin and saw what was happening, but didn't try to stop it. He said Thiessen watched for about 10 minutes before removing some of the most terrified boys, including Parker.

The boys were taken to the main camp building, where they were allowed to call their parents to pick them up.

"[Parker] could barely speak," Marci said.

"'I know this is going to be really hard for you to understand.… I saw an exorcism tonight and I want to come home.' You know, you don't expect those words to ever come out of your kid's mouth.

"He said, 'The kid, that boy had demons in him, mom.'"

Boy now sees he was deceived

Marci and her husband drove up immediately and were met by Thiessen. She said Thiessen told her they are "really lucky this year to have a leader with a special gift from God. He can speak to God, and God speaks back to him."

Marci said she was shocked, and got her son out of Redberry as fast as possible.

Parker kept repeating the "Jesus is lord" phrase to prevent the demon from following them home, he said. When they got inside the house at 2 a.m., Parker wouldn't go to sleep until he said a series of prayers in his room to protect it from demons.


Parker Bond stands in his room. He says that when he first got home from camp, he couldn't sleep until he said prayers to protect his room from demons. He now knows that he was deceived.© Jason Warick/CBC

Marci, Parker and other families gave statements to RCMP. This week, RCMP announced the investigation is closed and no charges will be laid.

Parker said that's a mistake. He asked how police can stop investigating when information is still coming out.

The Saskatchewan Camps Association, a voluntary accreditation body, sent a statement Wednesday to CBC News saying it is "saddened" to hear about the events at Redberry. It is launching a "review," but at the moment Redberry remains a fully accredited member.

In a YouTube video posted by Doerksen earlier this month, Doerksen admits he conducted a "deliverance" on a boy who collapsed and was then convulsing on the floor.

"I've got a room full of boys that are absolutely terrified … they are cowering under their blankets," Doerksen said in the video.

Doerksen said he was successful at casting out multiple demons from the boy. Parents say he handed out business cards so the boys could stay in touch should the demons return.

Marci said the problem is far deeper than just Doerksen. She said Thiessen, board chair Wayne Dick and others are justifying and condoning what happened there, and it can't continue.

Parents say some of the boys continue to suffer from delusions and paranoia.

Parker said he's been talking to his parents and others in the weeks since the exorcism, and now sees he was deceived.

Last week, in order to face his fears, he attended another camp near Christopher Lake, and said it was a great experience. He said he's excited about starting his first day of high school Thursday.

Parker said he's speaking out because he doesn't want this to happen to any other kids. He wants police, the camps association, government regulators and anyone associated with Redberry to do their jobs and keep kids safe.

"I'm angry that this happened, and that this was allowed to happen."

JUST ANOTHER CONSERVATIVE LEADER
‘A very high-level cover-up’: with mounting evidence of wrongdoing under his leadership Patrick Brown terminates City Hall forensic investigation

NOT PATRICK BROWN
USED FOR REPRESNTATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY

LONG READ

After receiving a damning forensic investigation update that revealed widespread wrongdoing in the use of taxpayer dollars for City contracts—at least one involving a close friend of Patrick Brown—on Friday during a last-minute special council meeting called hastily by the mayor at the end of the day, he terminated the ongoing investigations.

The forensic investigations by an independent audit firm were ordered May 18 by Brampton Council initially to look into the mishandling of $629,000 for the failed Brampton University plan pushed by Brown, following a staff report that showed much of the work was never completed and a firm whose point person on the project is one of Brown’s closest friends received three times more money than the amount approved by Council.

The investigation was broadened to include other procurements identified by senior staff and council members who raised concerns about the way contracts were handed out under Brown.

The investigation was being led by Froese Forensic Partners Ltd. which was authorized to use other procurement experts as well. According to the forensic update, included on the Special Council meeting agenda Friday, investigators found a number of violations in the procurements they had started to probe.

The full investigation report, after all work was set to be completed, was on track to be released before the end of September, ahead of the October 24 municipal election.

Brown moved to shut down the investigations, and unless his motion is overturned, the findings will not be revealed to the public with the election about eight weeks away.

Council members learned through a disturbing staff report earlier this year that the since abandoned BramptonU plan cost $629,000, after a consultant called SRA received almost $360,000 more than what was approved. Rob Godfrey, son of Post Media Chair Paul Godfrey and one of Brown’s closest friends, worked for SRA and a senior City staffer (Nikki Kaur, who is now running against Brown in the mayor’s race) stated in a previous Council meeting that Godfrey demanded payments that she was pressured to approve despite a lack of work to show for them.

The other company that received a contract for the work was ASI, specifically a man named David Wheeler (ASI has since said it had nothing to do with the BramptonU project and that Wheeler pursued the work on his own). Wheeler is a mentor and close friend of Councillor Rowena Santos, Brown’s loudest supporter on council, who documents show arranged to get Wheeler the $100,000 contract.

When Wheeler and Godfrey’s firm were awarded the contracts in October of 2019 Council was not informed of their relationship with Brown and Santos.

Regarding the two main contracts for the BramptonU plan awarded in the fall of 2019 after a bidding contest that began October 2 that year, the investigation firm wrote in its update to the City: “1. Was the work contracted by the City performed and were the contracted deliverables received by the City?

No.”

“There was insufficient information to evaluate the work performed for government relations and property developer / investment community outreach activities for which $100,000 was invoiced to the City. There were no time records available to support the time spent by SRA’s consultant for government relations activities, and limited hours disclosed in available time records for Dr. Wheeler and Ms. Partridge as related to property developer / investment community outreach activities and we were unable to gather sufficient information to substantiate whether Mr. Rudderham performed the contracted work for this delayed deliverable.”

The investigation update continues.

“3. Was there compliance with City policies and procedures? No. In our view there was an unfair advantage provided to SRA and ASI within the procurement process for RFP2019-079 and RFP2019-080, as Dr. Wheeler had knowledge, information and relationships that were not available to other vendors and the time period for submitting proposals, although meeting minimum policy limits, also favoured Dr. Wheeler.”

The investigators found Godfrey’s firm was lobbying to get the work and communicating information to help secure the contract directly with Brown’s office months before the open bidding process began in October of 2019.

“SRA (in association with ASI) had prepared a proposal for the Academic Planning component (or the work related to RFP2019-080) dated August 13, 2019 and emailed the proposal to the Chief of Staff for the Mayor’s office and Councillor Santos (on the same date). On the same date, Dr. Wheeler shared the proposal with Al Meneses, the then Acting CAO (of the City of Brampton).”

“Dr. Wheeler was aware in mid-August 2019, if not earlier, that the City might issue RFPs or possibly sole source the consulting work, allowing him time to plan, gather resources etc. in preparation for potential future work. By September 16, 2019, Dr. Wheeler had already begun to put a consulting team together…”.

“As part of the procurement process, vendors had requested that the City share the budget or budget range for RFP2019-079 and the City responded that it was not willing to disclose its budget. Dr. Wheeler appears to have prior knowledge that Council had approved up to $300,000 for BramptonU from existing budgets, as SRA and ASI combined proposed cost estimates fell within that budget range. We also observed that, although the technical proposals from SRA and ASI appeared to reasonably be scored higher than competing proposals, adjustments to consensus scoring for RFP2019-079 resulted in a competing proposal’s scoring being reduced from above the minimum score of 70% to just below the minimum, resulting in none of the competing proposals having their pricing bids opened. This may have impacted which consulting firm was successful.”

“4. Were there potential conflicts of interest for City staff, Councillors and / or consultants? Yes.”

The blistering investigation update clearly did not sit well with Brown. During the special council meeting he called Friday afternoon, he had just enough votes to terminate the investigations after Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon, who had previously supported the probes, failed to show up. That meant Brown and his four supporters, including Santos, who is implicated in the allegations of wrongdoing, were able to kill the investigations through a 5-4 vote. Previously, there were six councillors committed to the investigations, which they initiated with a series of 6-5 votes in the spring, but after the June provincial election, Charmaine Williams moved to Queen’s Park as an MPP and council has only had ten members since. Dhillon’s absence seemed to have been known by Brown, who sprung the meeting and his move to cancel the investigations with a prepared motion.

It left members of council and others furious.

Councillor Jeff Bowman spoke during Friday’s snap meeting against Brown’s motion, saying he and his supporters “can’t stop this at this stage now.”

“We’ve got some pretty damning evidence in this report that says, ‘We need to do this.’ When questions are being asked, ‘Did this RFP happen within the guidelines’ and the answer is, ‘No.’ That’s a red flag, a big, big red flag. We observed through technical proposals that scores were altered after the original scoring was done. That’s a huge red flag. ‘Were there potential conflicts of interests for City staff?’ ‘Yes’ there were, but ‘we are still working on that’ for phases 2 and 3. We can’t stop this at this stage now.”

Currently a mayoral candidate, Kaur is a lawyer and director with the City and was the former “point person” on the BramptonU file, regularly communicating with Wheeler alongside since fired CAO David Barrick, after he assigned her to the project in December, 2019.

She had been brought before Council in May to describe her experience, and was interviewed by the external firm for its forensic investigation.

“Brampton taxpayers need to be alarmed, this is very alarming,” Kaur told The Pointer Tuesday, after she watched the last-minute council meeting on Friday.

She said Brown’s conduct is “shocking” and fits his pattern, after allegations came forward that he committed federal election crimes, which led to his termination from the CPC leadership race and immediate decision to run for mayor again.

“This is the latest of his corruption and it’s so sad to see that he just covers up, covers up, covers up. It’s almost illegal. He pulled the investigation on his own. He was getting investigated and he pulled the plug. How will the taxpayers of Brampton ever know, and the residents of Brampton, what this was? And it will never get uncovered.”

Chris Bejnar, co-founder of local advocacy group Citizens For a Better Brampton, said Brown’s move denies taxpayers the opportunity to get the truth.

“It’s very disturbing to see this Mayor and his allies allowed to basically shut down further investigation when there is already damning conclusions coming to light and further investigative work still to be completed by the forensic audit firm. How is this OK in Ontario?”

Brown and Rob Godfrey, son of Postmedia Chair Paul Godfrey, are close friends. Godfrey was an employee of SRA when the firm was given what was supposed to be a $170,000 contract. Godfrey’s firm ended up getting more than $500,000 from Brampton taxpayers. The two worked together closely according to Brown’s own book which chronicles his fall from the PC Party in 2018, when Rob Godfrey, one of his most trusted confidantes, was part of his inner circle.

Santos is a former student and political ally of David Wheeler, co-founder of ASI; the firm no longer lists him as an employee and includes no mention of him on its website. Wheeler taught Santos as a post-secondary business instructor. Santos, who has called him a mentor, helped Wheeler when he sought political office in Nova Scotia in 2017, traveling to Halifax to assist with his campaign.

“Dr. Wheeler had knowledge, information and relationships that were not available to other vendors and the time period for submitting proposals, although meeting minimum policy limits, also favoured Dr. Wheeler,” the investigators wrote in their update, detailing communications for the BramptonU plan between Santos and him starting in early 2019.

Froese Forensic Partners included several examples of what it described as an “unfair advantage” to Godfrey’s firm and Wheeler.

The investigators found the scope section for one of the contract tender documents, which described what the successful bidder would have to do, contained similar language to communications SRA provided to the City before the RFPs were even issued, suggesting that City Staff actually used SRA’s August 2019 Proposal to shape the bid requirements. In addition, the tender response time was only 16 calendar days, the minimum range possible, and included a holiday.

Froese said the shorter response time combined with SRA’s prior communications about the work, were clear advantages (such communication prior to a tender process is prohibited under Ontario legislation).

The firm’s investigation into potential conflicts of interests were still ongoing, which they said were to be addressed for Phases 2 and 3 of the work, which has now been halted by Brown.

In the investigation update, the firm identified emails that disclose the connection between Santos and Wheeler that assisted Wheeler (through SRA) in obtaining the initial consulting contract related to BramptonU; and that Dr. Wheeler emailed Councillor Santos a draft of the July 10, 2019 presentation to Council that he prepared for the Acting CAO Joe Pittari, with Santos advising Pittari that she could assist “in cleaning the presentation up.” (Councillors have said they were unaware of the presentation and were never told of the relationship between Santos and Wheeler.)

The firm noted that Santos obtained a legal opinion in August 2019 from Muneeza Sheikh, then Ethics and Integrity Commissioner for the City of Brampton, that concluded there was no potential conflict of interest as it related to Councilor Santos’ involvement with the Brampton University initiative and her relationship with Dr. Wheeler.

“Although in our view the relationship was a potential conflict of interest, consistent with the description in Section 6.2 of the current Code of Conduct,” the investigators found. This section outlines obligations of council members to disclose potential conflicts and detail any relationships that could give rise to a perception of conflict. Santos did not do this. The investigators accepted that Santos did not violate conflict of interest rules pertaining to potential personal financial benefits to herself. However, while she might not have stood to benefit, her friend did, which is the point of section 6.2, which she appears to have violated.

The final investigation report was planned to be released at a special council meeting on September 12.

According to Paul Morrison, Brampton’s acting CAO, the final investigation would include three additional witness interviews, a final written piece on Section 3 and a governance conclusion.

The investigators wrote in the update that Godfrey and Wheeler have yet to be interviewed, it’s unclear why. Other senior City staff were also set to be interviewed in the immediate future.

“At this time this is what the forensic audit company has given us and they advised us to go further, they require more funds,” Morrison told council members Friday.

The investigation was to cost the City $100,000. The expected cost increased to about $150,000.

“That’s why I’m reporting back to Council because I’m required to report back on the financial piece of this. The expectation was that we had a limit set where we were going to go, and this would exceed that.”

Brown was adamantly against finishing the investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” during the meeting, despite the findings that showed serious rules had been broken. He previously tried to prevent the investigations from happening, voting against them, with the support of his four followers, in a series of 6-5 decisions that went against him. On Friday, he had enough votes to stop the investigations into conduct under his leadership.

Brown and Santos were joined by Michael Palleschi, Paul Vicente and Harkirat Singh, who terminated the forensic work.

The same members of Council voted on May 31 to not supply the investigators with the files and information needed, but they were outvoted by Pat Fortini, Jeff Bowman, Martin Medeiros, Doug Whillans, Gurpreet Dhillon and then-Councillor Charmaine Williams.

This time Dhillon wasn’t present for the votes and Charmaine Williams’ Wards 7 and 8 seat remains vacant after being elected as MPP.

Brown’s motion on Friday, seconded by Councillor Vicente, called for the allocated budget not to be exceeded and “any further work be ceased and the draft report be received as final.”

Peter Fay, Brampton’s City Clerk, said “technically Council can stop an investigation if they so choose” but reminded them of a letter from the Ontario Ombudsman’s Office discouraging them from doing exactly that.

“It appears to me from the attempt of Council’s resolution in May, there would be progress reports and this appears to be one,” Fay said. “Even though it’s Councils decision at the end of the day, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind members of Council that at the same meeting that they authorized this review, there was a letter from the Ombudsman of Ontario commenting on the investigation that occured in 2021 and was reminding Council that if they do investigations, independent investigations, there are three things to keep in mind: Have a clear purpose and mandate, make sure if there are real or perceived independence in the review, and make sure there are time and resources to complete the review. That was the advice of the Ombudsman that was provided to Council.”

During the special meeting Councillor Fortini accused Brown and his four supporters of sweeping the financial mishandlings “underneath the carpet.”

“We went this far, we got to continue it,” Fortini said. “This has been going along for a long time and we deserve answers. I think we should continue this, we can’t stop half-way, or three-quarters of the way and just throw money out the door and nobody’s here. Media’s been looking, we’ve been asking, everyone’s asking about this thing. It’s been over a year.”

Councillor Medeiros said the update is a “snapshot” of serious wrongdoing.

“Obviously the folks who prepared this interim report expected full well to come in September to provide a fulsome report which would have the appendices, have those statements, have the copies of whatever copies they have. This is part of a complete report to come forth.”

Medeiros tried to add an amendment to Brown’s motion, seconded by Fortini, that all supporting documentation and appendices on the document be provided to the public. Brown called for it to be a separate vote, then voted against it.

In favour of the amendment were Fortini, Bowman, Medeiros and Whillans. Against the amendment were Singh, Palleschi, Santos, Vicente and Brown. The amendment failed 4-5.

Medeiros questioned why Santos was present for the vote, not declaring any conflict of interest after being named throughout the investigation update.

“If she’s not declaring a conflict on a report that’s about her regarding an RFP, at this point there isn’t a conflict?” Medeiros asked. “I would say she has an opportunity to declare a conflict, because clearly there’s a conflict.”

Diana Soos, the City’s deputy solicitor and commissioner of legislative services, suggested it was not up to Brown or any other member of council to decide if the additional $50,000 for the investigation should be approved.

“To the extent that there is an issue of spending money excess of $50,000, that would not be something that would go to Council right now, that would go to the CAO,” Soos told Council. “I don’t believe there was a limitation on the resolution passed in May (which ordered the investigation) that really wouldn’t be an issue; what I think what I’m hearing is Council wants to cease the work.”

It’s unclear why a two-thirds majority vote was not required to change direction (cancelling the investigations) given through an earlier approved resolution of Council. The City did not provide an explanation.

In an interview with The Pointer after the special meeting, Bowman, who is not seeking reelection, said Brown’s motion means the City has lost all accountability over the activities that happened in the last three years under his chaotic leadership.

“I think personally that a couple of the motions the mayor made were not in order and should not be allowed to be made. There were questions I asked in regards to being in lame duck status, whether that meant the CAO had the power to make the decision (about extending the investigation) to which the City Clerk said yes, in his opinion it did, but that was overruled by the mayor.”

Bowman said the option of having Froese Forensic Partners come before Council to answer questions at a future meeting hasn’t been ruled out.

“In some instances there are some very damning things in here. I cannot envision anyone anywhere not reading this report and saying, ‘Something is definitely going on at the City,’” he said.

“We want to see the work, we want to see the appendices as Councillor Medeiros has suggested, we want to see emails that implicate Councillors in activities that they should have not necessarily be involved with—we want to see all of that.”

Bowman said he hasn’t personally started to look into legal action, but believes there is the “definite possibility” following Brown’s motion.

“I think these motions should be struck down as well. They do not represent good governance, it’s obviously a very high-level cover-up. They know there’s damaging material to come out of these reports and Mayor Brown and his four crutches on Council feel that it’s in their best interests to cancel the reports—not in the public’s best interest.”

With the election coming up, Bowman recommends all Brampton voters watch the meeting’s video recording and make up their own mind.

“Is this justifiable? Is this open and transparent? Or is there something more nefarious going on here and there’s a massive cover-up that needs to be looked at. In my mind when you watch the tape of that, you can clearly see every effort is being made to cover things up.”

Residents who go to listen to the meeting recording at 18 minutes and 53 seconds when Brown’s motion is being discussed will find audio missing, returning at 19 minutes and 40 seconds when Brown is part-way through explaining his motion to terminate any further investigation work.

Bejnar compared Brown’s conduct to a dictator.

“Brampton is not located in Russia, ruled by a dictator that can end an investigation before its completion. Where is our Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to step in and investigate this corruption and abuse of taxpayers money?

“It’s very clear that members of both the Conservative Party of Canada and the Ontario PC Party want nothing to do with Patrick Brown. I sure hope that the residents of Brampton will feel the same on October 24.”

Email: jessica.durling@thepointer.com
Twitter: @JessicaRDurling
Jessica Durling, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer