Daily Times

The country is working on a moment-to-moment action and reaction basis. When it comes to cricket, Pakistani cricket team performs best in the shorter versions. From test matches to 50-over games to T20, the success probability increases as the shorter version takes over. Thus, the second One-Day against Australia in Dubai where the match was decided finally in one Super Over was ideal for a team that is instinctively talented and will always be more likely to win where impulse matters more than strategy for long term. The short-term approach would have resulted in much more disastrous results had the tremendous talent of the team not saved the day for the sport.

However, when we talk about the same short-term approach in the running of the country it becomes dangerously perilous. With the countdown on election already on, the country has become a bazaar of kneejerk policies, plans, projects and proposals. There is a sudden realisation by both federal and provincial level governments that after four and a half years, there is hardly anything to say to the public on performance. This realisation to do something about a reelection strategy has turned the planning into a comedy of anything and everything for whomever. This in itself defeats the objective of having a clear path and a road map of what their past and current performance has been and what their future road map will be. What we see is a mindless passing of bills on one side and a huge spending spree on ostentatious projects on the other side, while the living conditions for the masses turn from bad to terrible.

The local government ordinance passed by Sindh government in collaboration with the Muthaida Qaumi Movement has become a matter of great resentment for all other parties, whether in coalition with government or not. The local government system and its election should have been a priority a long time ago. After having delayed it so much the question arises on the timing and the way the ordinance has been passed. A few months before the elections and without consultation with other parties, it has become a controversial issue that again reflects a lack of coherence and direction in the ranks of government. And this was not the first time this reaction had taken place. Last year, the same experiment had created the same reaction and then government had to restore the commissionarette system, much to the agony of a city and province already torn apart by ethnic divisions.

How fragile the conditions are and how ill focused the priorities are has been badly exposed as two horrible incidents of fire raging in factories in Karachi and Lahore revealed how unsafe and unprotected human lives are in this country. The Karachi incident was one such exposure of a complete lack of capability and law enforcement. With an ill equipped fire brigade and a tragic absence of opportunity for escape, people jumping out of windows was a reminder of the razing down of the World Trade Centre. However, no emergency aid was available in the form of padded landing etc with the result that almost 300 people were burned alive, including women and children. With such a catastrophe, one would expect some urgent activity against departments responsible for this violation, the responsible ministry to resign and the immediate inspection and closure of factories that are in a dilapidated shape. However, the only action so far is the expression of deep concern and sorrow and the formation of an investigative committee. Such is the indifference.

Punjab government has been so busy getting every flyover and road made in Lahore that all else has become immaterial. The sad part is the amount of money being spent on making a road for bus transport that would provide a 32-kilometre road to a few thousand people at the cost of health and education of 120 million people in Punjab. The road project is ultimately estimated to cost almost Rs 50 billion while the total health budget of Punjab last year was Rs 16 billion and that of education Rs 23.9 billion. The road has been constructed at the cost of 3.8 million children in the age of five to nine for whom no budget is available and thus will remain illiterate, retarding the opportunity of changing their and their family’s lives. While the total health budget of Punjab was Rs 16 billion and almost 400 people died in the fake medicine case of the PIC and dengue, there is no health minister and structure to deal with the issue of the service structure of the doctors and a plan of how to improve the appalling conditions in the hospitals. Imagine even for the 20-odd burn victims of the shoe-factory fire incident in Lahore, there was just one hospital available with a specialised burn unit to deal with these emergencies. Such is the sorry state of government affairs.

The contradictions in men who want to manage this country are self-defeating. Whoever comes to the seat of power does not want to leave it in the long run. However, their thinking and planning does not go beyond the hour. They will give grandiose statements, rush to the place of the incident, make committees, and before you even read what they have vehemently promised, it is history. If power is so important and their desire to sustain so great, they need to have a long term view on it. However, the mere fact that an election gives them the space of five long years they become comfortable in their time zone. Also, the habit of constantly getting away with a below par performance and attributing it to army intervention etc was in the past sufficient to justify messed up priorities. This living by a moment-to-moment approach has now exhausted its own options. With media continuously hovering over every remark and every move it is not possible to hide governance disasters under the cloak of flyways and roads made with humongous budget while priorities like health and education are hitting unprecedented lows. They must remember that when you invest short term you get short-term results; it is only when you genuinely think for the long-term benefit of the masses and invest in human and social development rather than in bricks and mortar that you make a case for sustaining your power in the long run.

The writer is a leadership coach, columnist and a former information secretary of the PTI Punjab. She can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com