Front Page Exclusive Article
Mohammad Zubair
The PM has again spoken against the lockdown. This time his logic is completely different from what we have been hearing since the first time he expressed his reservations against the complete lockdown. He says the lockdown was imposed to satisfy the Pakistan’s elite class. What would one infer from this statement – either the PM was bypassed while the decision was taken to impose lockdown or the elite forced him to take the lockdown decision. In either case, it does not reflect well not just for the PM but his entire team. If he was bypassed, who took the decision? And if the other inference is true – why did he succumb to the pressures of the elite. Did the elite in his own cabinet pushed him to take a decision which the PM didn’t want ? It is important for the PM to answer these questions and remove the ambiguity only created by the PM himself. He also said that the decision to impose lockdown was an act of cowardice. Probably PM has forgotten that the lockdown was imposed not just in Sindh but also in the 3 provinces ruled by his own party. And what about Islamabad – who imposed the lockdown there? In the last one month, it is the federal government which has announced extension each time the decision has been taken.
There is no doubt that the PM has remained confused on how best to fight this pandemic. Instead of announcing a clear strategy on his government plans to fight Covid-19, he has unnecessarily gone into explanations of why the lockdown is not a good strategy. Well then he should have explained what is the best way forward. None of that came. As if the PM was not enough in creating confusion, his cabinet colleagues and senior party leaders started to attack the sindh government which was the first one to take appropriate steps when Coronavirus hit Pakistan.
In this most serious crises facing the country, doctors were and remain the most important stakeholders. The government should have consulted the doctors more than any other stakeholder. The doctors have been totally against any relaxation in the lockdown. In fact the doctors are demanding a very strict lockdown failing which Pakistan could face devastating consequences.
Why the doctors opinion was most relevant? First it is essentially a health related issue. Second, doctors are the one who have to fight this on the battle front. If they are not on board with the government’s strategy, the chances of winning this battle would not look good.
Why are doctors insisting on a complete lockdown? First they believe and rightly so that given the history of this virus, it will exponentially spread in the next few weeks. Pakistan’s health system, already brittle & weak, will not be able to cope with this disaster. Second and extremely important – whether we have enough of the workforce in the form of doctors, nurses and other paramedics? Surely as the leading doctors point out, we do not have the workforce which will be able to sustain the ever increasing pressure. Third & final whether the doctors and other staff have the necessary equipment which is absolutely essential for them to protect themselves. As we have already seen, several doctors have died while managing the infected patients. Several hundred have caught the infection and are now not available to treat the ever growing number of patients.
But the government seems to be listening to every other stakeholder but the doctors community. The Ulema got their way with a 20 point agenda that will allow the mosques to remain open throughout the month of Ramadan. Within the first few days, it has become apparent that the 20 point agreement is not being followed by approximately 80% of the mosques surveyed recently. We can only hope and pray that the congregational gatherings will not have any negative impact with regard to the spread of Coronavirus. When we go into the second half of Ramadan, we can surely expect more people to gather at the mosques
Our government never made a serious attempt to convince the religious leadership on the seriousness of the epidemic. The government was more interested in playing politics as demonstrated by the statements of the President, the PM and other cabinet ministers. This is baffling and most unfortunate.
Convincing the business community was far more challenging given the serious economic implications of the lockdown. Like the rest of the world, the government had to convince big businesses as well as SME’s and traders why an extreme step had become inevitable. To cover up the losses, the government has announced various financial stimulus packages for different business categories. In addition, SBP has reduced the policy rate by 4.5 % since the start of the epidemic. Having given these financial stimulus packages and significantly reducing the policy rate, there was then no justification in also allowing most businesses to operate business as usual. At least for few weeks, a complete lockdown and it’s rationale was possible had the government tried to convince the businesses.
For those living below the poverty line, the government paid billions as part of the Ehsaas programme. The poor people of course deserved this without which the survival would have been very challenging.
The net effect of the decisions taken by the government including dishing out billions and billions should have been a successful lockdown over the last 5-6 weeks. Looking back, the government failed to implement the lockdown the way it should have been. The result is there for everyone to see – a consistent rise in the number of people getting affected by the virus as well as the increasing number of deaths. The number of people affected by the virus would have been significantly higher had we increased our testing – a crucial requirement to fight this epidemic. Instead the number of people being tested especially in Punjab has significantly gone down rather than going up. This is possibly being done to underplay the seriousness of the issue.
The PM needs to understand that the only way to fight this pandemic is by creating a national consensus. He has to bring all the stakeholders on board and that includes convening the parliament session. Let the parliament debate the way forward by coming up with the national action plan. To prepare that national action plan, the input needs to be taken from other stakeholders most importantly the doctors. This way the ownership will be shared by everyone and that is the only way success will be achieved. In absence, we will create more confusion and more friction between the federal government and the sindh government and other major stakeholders.
The writer is a former Governor of Sindh and former Minister for Privatization.
The views expressed by PML-N leader in this article are his own.
