Leadership challenge

By Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

The devastating floods that continue to sweep through all the four
provinces of Pakistan including AJK have left behind stories of miseries,
pain and anguish. According to the United Nations' assessment, the
total damage done by these floods is more than the combined
devastation of the Tsunami floods in 2004 and earthquake of October
2005, which rocked KP and AJK. In his urgent dash to Islamabad, UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon held meetings with the Pakistan
leadership to review the flood situation and visited the flood affected
areas. He has convened the session of General Assembly where the
Secretary General would present his report and ask the international
community to come forward to help the people of Pakistan. The UN has
already appealed for $ 460 million on emergency basis to cope up with
the challenge. It warned that in case of slow response, there would be
huge humanitarian crisis as around 20 million people face the prospects
of starvation, and outbreak of epidemics.

There is no denying the fact that nothing can be done to avert the
natural disasters. However, it is the rescue and relief phase by which the
damage can be minimized and many precious lives saved. This is the
area where government and its leadership has major role to play. It is
unfortunate commentary on the state of affairs in Pakistan that raging
floods exposed the inadequacy, incompetence and lack of vision of the
ruling elite with the result that millions of people including women and
children were left on their own to fend for themselves. Following points
are instructive in this regard:

Firstly, the earthquake of October 2005 brought this lesson home the
hard way that the government needed to put in place a swift and state of
the art damage control mechanism with trained personnel to cope up
with any natural disaster in future. As the recent tragedy shows that
when the floods started engulfing cities and villages, the government sat
inactive not knowing what to do. The havoc caused by raging floods and
monsoon downpour could have been minimized had the state equipped
itself with state of the art rapid response mechanism. But the ruling elite
whether in government or opposition, seemed to have different
priorities. In the wake of devastating earthquake in October 2008, our
government should have focused on acquiring modern gadgets and
training rescue personnel to help people in case natural tragedies struck
in future. People are justified in concluding that 0ur political parties and
governments are more interested in finding ways and means to
perpetuate themselves in power. They give a damn to what happens to
people. A country that prides itself on being the seventh nuclear power
of the world does not have the equipment to cut stones and trees as was
evident during the search operations following the unfortunate air crash
of Air Blue plane on the Margalla Hills.

Secondly, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is the only

federal agency responsible for spearheading the relief and rescue efforts
and coordinating the same with the provincial governments. Given the
magnitude of the flood disaster, NDMA is simply ill equipped to
undertake the operations in a befitting manner. There is a dire need of
upgrading the status of this Authority to make it more responsive and
efficient to meet the future challenges.

Thirdly, there has been a marked lack of coordination and cooperation

between the provincial and federal governments during the recent
floods. This resulted in dissipation of energy, duplication of functions
and wastage of resources with little output and more miseries for the
suffering people.

Fourthly, despite the fact that the MET office had predicted unusual
monsoon rains this year, the warning was not taken seriously by the
government. Had there been a proper system of information collection,
analysis and its dissemination to the relevant quarters, the damage
could have been minimized. Perhaps it is not in sync with the mindset of
our officialdom which believes in acting once the tragedy strikes.

Fifthly, there is a systematic flaw in the response pattern of the

government. It has been well over many months since the local
government system was disbanded but no elections have been held so
far. The unimaginative and lousy bureaucrats continue to lord over the
district governments. In the absence of a sound and efficient local
government system duly represented by elected leaders of people from
the grassroots, relief and rescue operations became well nigh difficult.
There was little community mobilization. The problem would become
even more critical once the rehabilitation process kicks off.

Sixthly, political class once again showed that the welfare and interests
of people are none of their priority. The President’s ill-timed and ill-
advised trip to the UK and France to launch the political career of his
son was symbolic of indifference politicians have for their electorate.
Both mainstream parties resorted to ‘flood politics’ and traded blames
aimed at deriving political mileage out of the human tragedy of the
gigantic proportions. The occasion demanded that political parties of all
hues and colours should have forgotten politics and converted their
grassroots representation into a huge force of volunteers to help the
people stranded in water.
Couple this disdain for the lives of common people with the criminal
official inaction in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial hub. While the target
killing spurred on by the murder of a local MPA was name of the game,
the state was totally absent. Both federal and provincial governments
chose not to intervene out of political considerations. The message sent
to people was loud and clear that they matter little in the calculations of
the political elite for whom capturing power at any and every cost
remains the top most priority.

Sixthly, media again played major role in exposing the follies and lack of
inaction of the government. Media’s outreach to and reporting from the
far-flung and unheard-of areas forced the governments to act reactively.
Also contrast abysmal performance of political brigade with the rescue
and relief operations carried by the Pakistan’s army, Navy and Air Force
and result would be crystal clear.

As the UN gets ready to request the world community to help the flood
affectees, our government needs to work out concrete rehabilitation
plans that may be presented to the international community. The
foreign missions of Pakistan have a huge role to play in awakening the
local and expatriate community to the reality of tragedy in the country,
thereby urging them to come forward and contribute their bit. Above all,
the government needs to deal with the questions of credibility and trust
so that the money and donations could be channelized for the benefit of
its end-users. The government’s belated decision of establishing a
national commission to oversee the spending of aid money is a good
step. At least, it would ensure transparency and proper use of money.
Once relief and rescue operations are over, the government needs to be
get busy over plugging the visible lacunae in the response system and
coming up with a national disaster management policy. The people of
Pakistan deserve better.