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.
Time to fight Omicron
Difficult as it would seem, the international community has been gearing up for the battle against the newly found Omicron coronavirus variant.
First up, this new variant has been detected in South Africa. Now that people have been willing to get vaccinated against COVID in large numbers across the world, the current fight against Omicron is only going to give the expected results.
First off, there should be no place for unnecessary fear and panic about this new variant among people.
More to the point, people should continue wearing masks whenever they venture out. For this, the media houses from across the world should pitch for awareness campaign spreading relevant news content.
On my part, I have been wearing mask right up till date while going out. I have been encouraging others and my family members to do so. As of now big news TV channels like BBC and CNN have been churning out many interesting stories of Omicron.
In this context, let us all pledge to break this new variant doing everything possible like wearing masks. After all, countries have to grow their agriculture and business to name a few. For this purpose, people should be active and free of restrictions and lockdowns.
P SENTHIL S DURAI
Maharashtra, India
New wave of Corona
As Covid-19 cases ebb in parts of the world, one region broke frightening news of a new and more dangerous variant being discovered; the B.1.1.529.
South Africa’s Health Minister rang alarm bells about its rapid transmission which is responsible for the 50 cases already confirmed.
This has ramifications for the entire international community which must take action to prevent a new wave from emerging and destroying the life and health of the global population.
According to the data released, the new variant has an unusual amount of mutations that have restructured the virus to become more destructive, resistant and contagious.
With 32 mutations occurring in the spike protein alone, the body’s immune response when infected is expected to be severely limited because these proteins will block the cells from attacking the virus and make it much easier for it to infect surrounding healthy cells.
The variant is also expected to be vaccine resistant which would effectively mean that we would be back to square one if it was to spread globally.
Pakistan is now reporting a positivity rate of just 0.89% on a daily basis, a figure that keeps decreasing as more people get vaccinated and build their immunity.
E-Setting up screening barriers for international travel in the short term is vital, along with starting track and trace reports from the airport.
If we are proactive about it, we may not have to reach the extent of completely shutting down our borders.
Effective precautionary measures are needed at government level to restrict more devastating pandemic.
JAMSHED ALAM SIDDIQUI
Lahore
Enhancing procurement practices
According to the Public Procurement and Disposal Act (2005), “procurement” refers to the acquisition of any form of works, services, or supplies by purchase, rental, lease, hire buy, licence, tenancy, franchise or any other contractual means.
Despite the fact that governmental bodies and public procurement practitioners have worked extensively to enhance public procurement methods, public procurement has been a neglected field of research.
Governments must have access to the appropriate capabilities, competencies, services and goods in order to achieve their objectives.
Internally, civil personnel often offer these, but in many circumstances, they must be procured from the commercial sector through public procurement processes.
The basic goal of public procurement is to deliver goods and services in a timely, cost-effective and efficient manner in order to fulfil government missions.
Public procurement activities, on the other hand, are funded by taxpayers, making them a sensitive area that must be handled efficiently and to high standards in order to protect the public interest.
The crucial nature of public procurement, along with the requirement to maintain integrity, creates enormous tensions and hurdles when it comes to realising its revolutionary potential.
Government procurement experts are an important aspect of a well-functioning government and have an impact on citizens’ lives because they deal with taxpayer cash.
There are multiple ways to address these challenges those are by gaining a unified perspective of purchasing spend, defining an appropriate aspiration for change, optimising purchasing processes, and strengthening the purchasing organisation are all ways that institutions might enhance purchasing.
They may then buy a staged approach to making these adjustments, starting with a few major spending areas.
AKASHA HANIF
Via email
Petroleum gimmick
IMF is NO Solution, arrange your own house in order first, CBR to FBR No Change – doctoring of figures is the name of the game among corrupts.
Plug the leakage of revenue from the State Coffers, make public as transparent measure Income & Expenditure details, in a financially dried country do you know how many officials are getting salary packages in hundreds of thousand rupees per month for efficiently serving the government without any efficacy towards national betterment. They are paid to push things under the carpet?
ALI ASHRAF KHAN
Karachi
