Articles and letters may be edited for the purposes of clarity and space. They are published in good faith with a view to enlightening all the stakeholders. However, the contents of these writings may not necessarily match the views of the newspaper.
Financial literacy
As an educated woman, I still am hesitant to take credit from a bank. The technical jargons, which I am not able to understand and the cumbersome documentation creates doubts in my mind. I feel financial literacy is the biggest barrier for women, when it comes to being financially included. Without easily comprehending a service, how can we be comfortable using and trusting it?
I feel financial institutions should work on their communication style, use simple language which the customer understands. Alongside this, provision of training and coaching to women should also be on the agenda. Enterprises such as Karandaaz Pakistan and National Financial Literacy Program for Youth are working on this goal, but more needs to be done from the banking sector itself.
Ease of opening accounts and lending money from Bank should be the priority to increase women participation in the economy. In China, women participation in economic activities is whooping 37% whereas in Pakistan it is just 7%. To come out of developing countries status, Pakistan must encourage women financial inclusion through digitalization of the economy which makes the process easy and user friendly.
ADNAN ALI MUGHAL
Islamabad
Corruption and looting in Zimbabwe
It is painful that Zimbabweans are suffering, no decent standards of living for the poor and week, no food, shelter, clothes, health, and education whilst ZANU-PF officials are smuggling gold and putting money to their pockets. It is clear that corruption is not going to end in Zimbabwe.
Four months back Zimbabwean former Health Minister Obadiah Moyo was arrested of corruption regarding a $60m deal to procure COVID-19 test kits and medical equipment. I am extremely happy that Henritta Rushwaya was arrested on the 26th of October 2020 for intending to smuggle gold to Dubai through Robert Mugabe International Airport Harare Zimbabwe.
Corruption of smuggling gold and the gold panniers who are working in poor illegal gold planning, which is damaging plantations, grazing areas, fields, urban areas, road, rail and electricity transmission servitudes and have become a threat to socio-economic development. ZANU-PF affiliate Henritta Rushwaya should rot in Zimbabwean prison for her crime. President Emerson Mnangagwa has tolerated too much corruption in his ZANU-PF cabinet and should resign to save Zimbabwe from corruption and looting.
KUDZAI CHIKOWORE
London
Roads block
It has become common to convene social and religious gatherings on roads owing to which roads get blocked for several hours causing trouble to the common man. Roads are the means of travelling. If roads are blocked, where would the people go? How would they go to their jobs? How would they perform their duties? And what if someone is in a medical emergency? Besides blocking of roads, they also use high frequency speakers which creates disturbance for the nearby people.
COVID-19 pandemic is spreading rapidly again at a fast pace in Pakistan as in other parts of the world. One of its causes is ignorance of SOPs in social and religious gatherings. In gatherings, there remains no enough space to maintain social distancing. The people sit by shoulder to shoulder in gatherings. However, implementation of SOPs in gatherings is practically impossible. I am astonished why the people aren’t taking COVID-19 novel seriously, don’t they remember the days when everyone was restricted to his home?
Therefore, the number of social and religious events should be minimized as to control over spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the gatherings should not be held on roads instead they should be organized in grounds. The blockage of roads due to the gatherings also causes a difficulty for the outsiders who don’t know about other side roads of the city.
MUZAFFAR KHOSO
Sukkur
Pharmaceutical industry in pandemic
At the end of 2019, outbreak of Covid-19 was reported in parts of China which spread extensively to other parts of the world. In this public health emergency, all nations declared lockdown to limit the spread of Coronavirus. The lockdown was helpful to overcome the immediate danger to public health, but it also impacted the supply of pharmaceutical products for general public. For the countries like Pakistan to sustain the supply chain of medicines was tough as the availability of raw material became a major problem.
China – the hotspot of Coronavirus – is of the one of the major contributors of the pharmaceutical need of the world including Pakistan. Similarly, India is one of the top contributors in the supply of pharmaceutical raw material for pharmaceutical sector in Pakistan. The pandemic situation has halted every possibility of overcoming supply risks for pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan. Pharmaceutical companies are still lagging when it comes to bringing in automation in their procurement process. Many have resisted adapting to newer technologies available that would make their procurement team’s productivity grow enormously.
On other hand, it also opened new opportunities for the industries to find alternate procedures available to overcome the short supply of raw material. All these areas can form core components of a supplier management business case. But on a standalone basis, thousands of global companies have already invested in data sources, specialized software or a combination of two to monitor at least certain elements of supplier risk outside of these other supplier management areas. Organizations can pull in building a business case for managing suppliers through technology, supplier risk management and broader supply risk management is one that is often most use.
SAMRA YASIN
Karachi
