- Prime Minister needs to be more proactive
Emergencies can occur at any time with increasing frequency and number of victims. Planning and practicing for these events are keys factors for a favorable response. As World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Corona Virus a pandemic, comprehensive emergency management strategies should be practiced as whole. Mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery is of paramount importance at this time of panic for every country. The world, we all freely admit, is in muddle and chaos, due to a tiny thing which cannot be seen with the naked eye. If the situation is not dealt with active virtues the chaos would be even more problematic. The strenuous situation must not be challenged by passiveness.
All regions of Pakistan are following lockdown and nobody knows for how long it will last. For this uncertainty, dealing with this lockdown is a genuine concern. A few reports reveal that 31% of population is living below the line of poverty in Pakistan, and the percentage is slipping more due to double-digit inflation. How to deal with all these, as many rely only on daily wages? Other concerns involve; keeping public away from depression, panic buying and hysteria. Post pandemic survival is a matter of later subject, but the policies today must be interconnected with post pandemic circumstances to better deal with the whole situation.
Food security and supply chain is a matter of utmost importance at least in lockdowns. Luckily being an agrarian economy, Pakistan can beat this challenge with strategic formulation of plans and its implementation. Food supplies are enough, but lack of logistical planning is making it harder to get products where they need to be. For example, the Government had stopped goods transportation in lockdown later reopening causing a shortage and increase in food inflation. Urban centers, more so than rural, need proper planning in the sense for supplying food ration to people confined to their homes with dwindling cash flows. Supply chain strategies must be built on urgent basis. Alarmingly, riots could soon become a reality in urban and suburban centers as hardly anyone will sit at home empty stomach, if the passiveness in making strategies goes on. All those charismatic leaders should now get out of their charisma and take timely decisions.
The beauty of inclusive policies lies in its broad meaning; includes not only poor class but all citizens. Implementation of these strategies will be possible only if the Prime Minister does not only rely on its team, in which the essential ones are unelected, but also on all stakeholders.
Monetary policymakers must see the intensity of the prevailing economic situation and should have taken necessary measures other countries are taking, by now. Interest rates should have been dropped by now to a single digit value. The most immediate questions that we face are whether the policies currently under consideration or being implemented provide sufficient measures against the prevailing circumstances. Suppose, would a helicopter drop policy (cash given by government to individuals legitimately) adopted by PM to give 3 thousand per month to 7 million daily wagers, cumulative with all other relief packages, be sufficient for partial relief, in present time of double-digit inflation?
Similarly, deferment of bank installments in principle payments “ONLY” for SMEs may not be the relief for them as of the halted money supply. Interest payments are also not possible with businesses shut down. Government has allowed only extension of due dates for one week for utility bills which will be of no use to SMEs or industries who are unable gather the receivables from business sector. They need to choose between taking care of their workers or paying bills. There are statements, however, constrained to proclamations rather forceful executions. Whereas leadership requires behavior, not a formal position, it’s a function of specific capabilities rather than simply passing statements.
Aforementioned problems could be solved by shaping the policies that should always be inclusive rather extractive. The beauty of inclusive policies lies in its broad meaning; includes not only poor class but all citizens. Implementation of these strategies will be possible only if the Prime Minister Imran Khan does not only rely on its team, in which the essential ones are unelected, but also on all stakeholders. Online conferences with all experts i.e. Doctors, biotechnologists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and economists may help him in getting more novel and better version of policies to curb the virus and its consequences on the nation. Bona fide and authentic opinions can be taken from them through email. But woefully, we are still unable to change our inherited extractive policies. Subsequently, these extractive policies have a drastic impact on population in pandemics, for example in Britain in 1348, the Black Death which had taken out large number of people; led to the previously held extractive landlord labor relation towards more equal relations embodied in policy making and legislation. Likewise, a lockdown in lieu of prevailing pandemic of COVID-19 has forgotten many as opposed to having approaches that incorporates all. Self-admiration of the PM is driving us to nowhere but to financial breakdown. Reporting strategies are distorted as in case of Gilgit Baltistan, where funds, given by World Bank, have not been transferred yet by federal government. Police blockades are limited to stop people whereas they should be handed thermal scanners for excessive testing. But unfortunately, self-centeredness of the proclaimed leader won’t let him listen to anyone.
