Parliament should step up

Published June 13, 2020
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.

THE Covid-19 situation is at a stage where it could easily spiral out of control. It is high time for the leadership to stop treating it as political football and recognise it for what it really is: a public health emergency. Easier said than done in an environment dripping with toxic polarisation. But there are ways to move beyond this polarisation — or at least curb it temporarily — in order to get a handle on this swiftly deteriorating situation. Here are specific suggestions for our leadership.

The ‘Lockdown vs No Lockdown’ debate has needlessly become a partisan hot potato. It should not be. Covid-19 is not a partisan issue. This is why it requires collective ownership so decisions are taken not for reasons of political one-upmanship but for the safety of citizens. For this to happen, all political parties need to take a deep breath, calm down and take one step back.

Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. If we can swiftly build a narrative that states that Covid-19 need not be a zero-sum game between the government and the opposition, we can find within ourselves a reason to sculpt a bipartisan strategy to combat the virus.

Call this ‘National Strategy forCovid-19 Phase 2’. Such a strategy is becoming a necessity each passing day as the number of infections increase exponentially. The last thing we need right now is to be lurching from policy to policy without a sustained investment in professionally sound advice and input. The government is mandated to execute its own policy but at this stage parliamentary oversight — which can inject fresh thinking and specialised input — is becoming critical. How do we make this happen? Fortunately, our democratic structures provide space to construct such a policy framework using available forums. Here’s one way:

We can find within ourselves a reason to sculpt a bipartisan strategy to combat the virus.

1) Speaker of the National Assembly Asad Qaisar should call a meeting of the already constituted special joint committee of the National Assembly and Senate with the aim of formulating a set of policy recommendations on Covid-19. The committee, headed by the speaker himself, was constituted on March 26 and comprises 12 MNAs and 13 senators. The committee was constituted by the speaker in consultation with Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani in line with the request from Prime Minister Imran Khan. The committee was mandated to monitor, review and oversee issues related to Covid-19. It held a meeting in which the prime minister also participated. However, the meeting fell victim to acute polarisation when the prime minister left after delivering his introductory remarks and without hearing the speeches of other party leaders. That was then. Now the situation is much worse and the committee needs to reconvene for the purpose it was originally constituted.

2) Planning Minister Asad Umar is not among the members but he needs to be included in the committee. Since the formation of the committee, Asad Umar has played a leading role in the fight against Covid-19 as head of the National Command and Operations Centre. He will bring to the table key policy input honed over weeks during the non-stop operations of NCOC. He will also carry the establishment’s policy input via the NCOC route. This is critical in the context of the reservoir of experience built over the weeks by the NCOC and the implementation of policies via the establishment and the provincial administrative machineries.

3) Since parliament is already in session, we are ideally placed to get this committee working on a deadline. Speaker Asad Qaisar can pass a ruling that the committee will meet every day without a break till it has mapped out a detailed policy framework. The committee should be given a deadline of perhaps 10 days maximum to produce final recommendations given the acute urgency demanded by the situation.

4) The committee should then invite key specialists from all relevant fields to give briefings and present policy options. Committee members can question, debate and discuss the pros/cons of all presentations for greater clarity. Specialists may include doctors, public health experts, infectious diseases specialists, mathematical modellers, data scientists, pharmaceutical representatives, public policy experts, international consultants, behavioural psychologists, strategic communication experts, brand influencers, public sector administrators, welfare organisation heads, donor agencies representatives, economists and bankers. These experts should be asked to bring specific proposals with them.

5) Based on these detailed hearings, the committee should be able to draft specific policy options aimed at combating Covid-19 effectively based on practical, doable and finance-able best practices. These recommendations would represent the sense of parliament as a whole.

6) All committee proceedings/hearings should be shown live on the PTV Parliament channel. At a critical moment in our history, let the nation see how its political leadership is rising to the occasion and forging a policy that can strengthen the national effort against the pandemic. The live telecast of these proceedings of the committee will also help generate a non-abrasive and non-divisive narrative that Pakistan needs today. It will also help inject specificity into our public discourse and elevate policy discussion in the public domain to a higher level. A transparent national conversation on our policy options will help the leadership build confidence among the public and provide policymakers a deeper context that is often difficult to find through group think dynamics within official circles.

7) These policy recommendations, representing the collective will of parliament, should then be sent to the National Coordination Committee which is chaired by the prime minister. The NCC can have a final debate on these recommendations. This is where provincial chief ministers can bring in their input to add to the recommendations before they are made part of the prime minister’s final policy framework which is operationalised by the NCOC in coordination with all the provinces.

We will then move ahead with swiftness, consensus, professionalism and inter-provincial as well as inter-party coordination and cooperation to degrade and defeat the threat of Covid-19.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.

Twitter: @fahdhusain

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2020

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