By: Asem Mustafa Awan
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced seventy billion rupees for rehabilitation and the calamity has left a path of death and destruction everywhere and not all is finished as water inundates different areas. Prime Mini-ster Shehbaz Sharif has announced there would be equal distribution of funds for the flood affectees and everyone has to join hands to make it happen.
Many problems have emerged owing to the colossal damage that has resulted in crashing the infrastructure namely roads and bridges besides influential political elite that have been taking away the relief goods and storing it in their own warehouses. The transparency in aid distribution is need of the hour as hundreds of trucks are seen leaving for different places and somehow there is no mechanism in place as woeful tales of the affectees through social media are heart-wrenching who have been hungry for days. It is pertinent to note that people on an individual basis have tried taking the relief goods to the affetees instead of entrusting the government for dispatch. This lack of trust should be taken as an alarm as world is now looking at Pakistan and the devastation caused by the floods.
Government must come up with a transparent system that guarantees fairness as millions have suffered and have lost everything. The world has taken a sympathetic view as is now coming all out to assist Pakistan in rehabilitation work which may take a while.The recent days have been filled with complaints from people who have voiced their words with anger out of hunger. Names of the influential elites who are part of the government also surfaced with video evidence. These powerful bigwigs saved their farmland crops while ruining hundreds of household of the poor in changing the direction of the water. The phenomenal damage in the floods have made people come out from their fear and after losing everything they are telling the reasons and holding people responsible for their miserable state.
The government of Pakistan is faced with one problem after the other and making a mockery of these destitute people is not going unnoticed. It is time that all those who in the past made millions from the floods relief packages should be put on hold and restrained. So many days have passed and no central system is in place that could quantify the relief activities while Edhi, Al Khidmet, Akhuat and many others are doing commendable work but it is very little as compared to the damage done.
The PTI government established NCOC at the onset of Corona. In this institution, the data of every Corona patient would have been collected automatically. A patient from a remote area or from an urban area would become part of the database. From this data, it would have been estimated in which area the intensity of corona is increasing, smart lockdown would have been imposed there. Cash assistance was given through the Ehsaas program to the poor populations of the areas affected by Corona. This data bank if not erased still exists and people if not swept away by floods are still there. Let us all rise above the petty differences and rebuild the nation.
The writer is Special Correspondent at The Dayspring