HYDERABAD: Civil society of Sindh show serious concerns over mismanagement of ration and cash distribution and the very poor and biased coordination between Sindh Government and the Federal Government while serving the nation’s rights and the commitments of CM Sindh and PM Pakistan.
Chairing civil society meeting held in Hyderabad, Mr. Kashif Siddiqui also said that EHSAAS Program may be productive for the country as PM’s initiative, but currently it is providing cash grant of 12,000/- per Household based on BISP Data. He shared that the serious concern is utilization of this data for COVID relief because BISP registration is still ongoing and as per current status it is still below 40% covered the whole population. The Chairman HCSN questioned the COVID, 19 relief for not covering all the below poverty line communities residing in the country.
Mr. Siddiqui added that there is no second verdict that COVID, 19 spreads from person to person and then further spread from infected persons through contaminated droplets from them who are sick with the illness (through coughing or sneezing) or contaminated hands, so, a strategy to combat this spread was ironically needed, as per other countries’ best practices specially the China.
Mr. Darshan Sachdev, vice president Humanity First Foundation (trust) said that earlier, there was a political war over the decision either to announce lock down or not, but Sindh Government initiated this announcement on 22nd March, 2020 and then we saw the rest provinces also followed the decision, but there were no any acknowledgement and appreciations by federal government on this initiative of Sindh that helped other provinces too to control the spread of local transmission of COVID, 19, even till to date there is conflict on such decision
Sharing concern by senior civil society representative Mr. Noor Bajeer said that two days ago, we have entered in a situation where we started to see the disastrous spread of COVID, 19 due to conflicts and lack of coordination between Sindh Govt. and Federal Govt. On one side we have to ensure social distance and on other side there is very unorganized ration distribution and 12,000 cash, which are concrete evidences of mismanagement and poor coordination between federal and provincial leve.
Senior civil society representative Mr. Mukhtiar Abbassi shared that with extraordinary support to State decision, we all relied on both pillars of state and tried to sensitize and mobilize resources from philanthropists and other charities to come forward and support the poor for provision of ration without compromising their dignity and privacy. And, the media is witnessed for all in the Sindh to work as partner of state rather to oppose.
Social and political activist Mr. Punhal Sariyo said that this mismanagement and poor coordination has started high risks of the spread of COVID, 19 and there will be no one can control it as we are already not a country having good health facilities and medical development.
HCSN Advocate Salma Fateh shared that the civil society already showed its concern over poor facilities and efforts where deficiencies of personal protection equipment PPEs are horrifying and in the conditions for the doctors, LEAs, sanitary workers and the police persons on roads to maintain lock down etc.
She added that this lock down already not being implemented at its true spirit towards its purpose, and the discussion to make lock down more relaxed will definitely come up with more cases and the longer the situation over June, 2020.
HCSN strongly suggest Sindh Government and Federal Government to:
1. Make effective, efficient, unbiased and non-political coordination with each other in the best interests of the citizens,
2. Make the implementation direction full without compromising the human lives
3. Explore other ways of cash distribution, as we have already an appreciable best practice of Pakistan Post who distributed the pension amount to more than 200,000 older persons in only 2 days,
4. Provide proper resources including additional security force like rangers and time to all concerned actors at District level,
5. Give time for two or more days to all concerned departments to ensure the arrangements of cash distribution, if no any other way to be explored and accepted at Provincial and Federal Government, 6. Make responsible each DC, SSP, LG and DHO to ensure micro-management with proper arrangements including social distances and availability of sanitizers, masks and safe drinking water at the venues.
