Manhole claims lives of 2 children

Two siblings drowned within the jurisdiction of Garden Police headquarters on Sunday, after they fell into an uncovered manhole. Seven-year-old Abdul Rahim and his four-year-old sister, Saniya, went out to play outside their home located at Block E, Officer Line, Police Headquarter during a power breakdown.

When the children did not return home, their father, Aftab Ahmed, an ASI in the police went out to look for them. Ahmed came across their slippers on the edge of an uncovered manhole and then recovered their bodies from the sewerage drain. The bodies of the children will be taken for burial to Pano Aqil, their hometown.

Mumtaz Bhutto put under house arrest

Sindh National Front (SNF) leader Sardar Mumtaz Bhutto has been put under house arrest in Larkana on Saturday for allegedly ordering his workers to attack on the office of a Sindhi newspaper.

According to reports, the workers of SNF had attacked the office of a local daily and a case was registered against Mumtaz Bhutto in this connection.

He will be shifted to Karachi later in the evening where he will be interrogated.

Karachi police on killing spree

Source : Yusuf Khan

The way the City Police murdered four businessmen from Balochistan just hours before the advent of 2009 and the way police killed a youngster on the new year’s eve, it is obvious the police has secured license to kill innocent people and this government did not want to stop this unabated killing spree.

This is unfortunate state of affairs and the blame squarely rests on the shoulders of talkative Zulfikar Mirza, the right hand man of President Asif Ali Zardari. There is a genuine feeling among those who know Mirza who seldom cares for the worsening law and order in the metropolis. The new wave is dangerous as city police showed no remorse and claimed those who were killed they fired first at the police party then the police shot them dead in self defence. This is unbelievable and unacceptable.

Four young traders from Balochistan were shot dead by police in Karachi. Similarly a young man was killed on the New Year’s eve who was coming out of a fast food outlet.

The police repeated the similar story and claimed to recover three bottles of whisky from his car. If this is the basis to kill him then I am afraid every second minister in Sindh could become target of such wanton killing. In most of the cases they are religiously involved in fun and frolic and the chief minister seldom bothers to take strict action. Why they use so much booze whenever they manage to secure power is anybody’s guess.

Apart from this, six citizens lost their lives who were celebrating the New Year in style. This is unpardonable again. (The Nation)

Life returns to the capital market

Life returned to Karachi Stock Exchange and things took a bright look after suffering gloomy atmosphere at least for last six months.

The market saw shapes of green after being gripped of bearish sentiments after the removal of the cap from KSE-100 which gained 40.39points to close at 5,793.57points level while turnover surged by 179% from yesterday to 210.8m shares. In the overall market, bulls were finally able to thrash the bears by 166 to 71 from overall 241 scrips traded today.

In fact the driving force behind igniting spark in the market was the injection of Rs20 billion State Enterprise Fund as the National Bank of Pakistan, Employees Old age Benefits Institution (EOBI), State Life of Pakistan and a banking consortium transferred Rs5 billion each to the Fund being managed by National Investment Trust.

Resultantly, fresh life in the market was quite visible from the beaming faced of the depressed brokers and investors who suffered heavily due to financial turmoil and suspension of the trade at KSE at least for three months.

It looks that the major issues concerning the market are about to be addressed within a couple of days to bring a spark in the market following activation of Rs20 billion fund sparked new hope in the investors.

It may be noted that several brokerage houses and agencies either compelled to suspend their business operations and thousands of people attached to the stock market were rendered jobless as a result of the financial turmoil which consequently forced the regulators to suspend business operations at Karachi Stock Exchange for more than three months from October to recently ended December 2008.

Many people earning their bread and butter from stock exchange had to switch over to other professions and most of them have to sell their assets including houses, cars and other valuables to make up the losses incurred in the wake of financial melt down at the capital market.

The uncalled for suspension of business at the capital market due to fear of a thud fall sent a bad message of the economy abroad and provided an opportunity to the credit rating agencies to for downgrading of the sovereign rating of the country. However, the fear of heavy correction proved true which is reflected in the drop of the index to the level of 5,753 from over 15000 point level when the financial crisis hit the economy.

Meanwhile NIT is quite ready to launch the Rs.20 billion NIT-State Enterprise Fund without losing any time as NIT has completed all necessary legal work which includes signing of the agreement with the financing institutions and the approval of Guarantees of the government of Pakistan.

The legal work which entailed a lot details and paper work including the registration, approval of the Fund, Financing Agreements, Guarantees etc all have been accomplished.

The fund can only invest in 8 eligible stocks which are identified as OGDC, PSO, PPL, SNGPL, SSGC, KAPCO, and NBP AND PTCL.

According to NIT, the Fund is intended to sell units to the non-resident Pakistanis after the initial operation and after the market stabilization. The stocks mainly related to strong state owned organizations would perform well and provide necessary security to the financers of the fund and send strong signals to the market which is overly depressed at present. Returning to day’s business, the investors took fresh positions in major blue chips items like OGDC, PTCL, UBL, DGKC and NBP which also were the volume leaders today.

Karachi stock market starts new year dismally; down 112 points

Devaluation spree of shares prices at Karachi Stock Exchange remained continue unabatedly even on the beginning of new year and amid hopes for the unveiling of marketing supporting fund programme this week. Thursday was the 14th consecutive day after the removal of floor mechanism when Karachi Bourse meltdown unabatedly shedding further 1.9 per cent value - lowest in the recent past - meaning the market has so far lost 37 per cent of its value since December 15, when regulators removed a “floor” on the benchmark index imposed in August to stop such colossal losses to investors and brokers.

Though, market meltdown ratio remained minimum in today’s business as traders were optimised that government would unveil bailout package within current week.

The ramshackle Karachi Stock Exchange went further down as KSE bourse had lost 111.83 points and wrapped up at 5,753.18 below 6,000 psychological barrier after a long span of time.

Volume was 75.43 million shares, as compared with the average 250 million shares that traded hands daily in 2007

Karachi police reluctant to avail CDGK’s surveillance facility

Despite the offer by City Nazim Mustafa Kamal to the police and other law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) for availing the City District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) Command and Control Centre (C&CC) facility for maintaining law and order in the city, these agencies have neither deputed any senior official at the C&CC nor have they contacted the CDGK so far to use the facility.

The city government had extended its surveillance to Nishtar Park and M.A. Jinnah Road a couple of days ago and on this occasion, Kamal had suggested the police and other LEAs to utilize this facility for monitoring activities in these areas during Muharram.

On the other hand, a senior Sindh police official denied the CDGK’s claims that they had turned down its request for using the C&CC. He said that they had been asked by the Sindh Home Department to avail the CDGK facility from 8th to 10th Muharram.

Through CDGK C&CC, both signal-free corridors (I&II), Nishtar Park, M.A. Jinnah Road and other important city roads could be monitored with surveillance cameras, CDGK officials said. They claimed that it was the same technology being used in the United States and other developed countries of the world for maintaining law and order, keeping an eye on anti-social elements at crowded places and identifying culprits involved in sabotage activities.

Last four years’ gains wiped out on bourses

The calendar year 2008 eroded the last four years straight and unprecedented growth of local stock markets, as Pakistan’s leading benchmark KSE 100-share Index crashed by over 58 per cent to four years low of Dec 2004 level.

The KSE 100 plummeted 58.332 per cent or 8,210.82 points on year-on-year basis to 5,865.01 points on Wednesday from 14,075.83 points on Jan 01. Over the same period, an outflow of Rs2.471 trillion from market capitalisation was also noted.

Average daily volumes in the cash market fell 48 per cent in 2008 to 133 million shares. While foreign portfolio investors disinvested US$439 million in net during the year.

The year started at local bourses with confidence, cheer, and smooth flight to record high till April despite a lot of hue and cry on political front.

Banking, mutual funds, oil marketing companies, refineries, insurance, telecommunication, cement, fertilizer, automobile almost all of the economic sectors were performing on fast pace with every passing day.

But, the global economic recession - that was initiated with the mortgage sub-prime issue in the USA in middle of calendar year 2007 - surrounded equity markets across the globe where the local bourses were no exceptional.

The sub-prime mortgage issue started impacting local bourses from middle of April when Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) proposed further extension in the exemption of Capital Gain Tax (CGT) on share transaction, which it was enjoying since 1973.

Government was seen firm to end CGT exemption on June 30, as it was viewing market as a strong and potential source of taxed income owing to its unmatched performance over the last seven years - Since year 2000.

The difference of opinion between government and brokers created a rift between the two and brokers - who were enjoying strong hold and monopoly - started pulling down the market to convince the government that CGT was not in market’s favour, experts recall.

Eventually, the market got another two years’ extension in CGT up to June 30, 2010, but by the time it got extension sometime in July market had incurred heavy losses.

In the meantime, the global recession had sped up its impact, and on local political front the PPP-PML(N) coalition government had presented a strong case against Gen. Musharraf who had to step down from President office in August.

This political rift between President and Prime Minister’s camps never allowed the local bourses to come out of depression till then. Yet it (market) was getting posited to stable, but the failure of coalition government to reinstate all deposed judges on Nov 03, 2007 position resulted in the break-up of coalition government.

This all lingered the political crisis amid continuous withdrawal of funds by overseas investors, and the revealing of a number of weaknesses in the local economy altogether shattered the equity investors’ confidence on the bourses.

Till this time, players had put all of their money on stake at bourses and market authorities had started making margin calls and mark-to-market losses, which many of them had failed to deliver.

On the other hand, State Bank of Pakistan had raised its discount rates from 10.5 per cent to 13 per cent during May to July and also drained out money from market by using some tolls to control the historical high inflation in Pakistan.

However, SBP inflation control policy proved fatal for equity markets, as tight monetary policy created liquidity crunch.

To run away from massive level default and bankruptcy of brokers, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and authorities at local bourses made many regulatory changes. The last change was the introduction of floor-price mechanism in August that prevented incurring losses for about three and half months, but lifting of floor on Dec 15 resulted in fresh 36 per cent decline in market.

“Imposition of price floor by the regulators was the confidence killer for the market as it created one of the worst crisis in local markets. Karachi bourse that fell by 35 per cent before the imposition of floor, crashed by 36 per cent in 12 trading sessions after the lifting of floor rule,” reported JS Global.

The market experts are looking forward to consolidation of market in around the current level while ruling out any sudden upsurge in the index.