RESIGNATIONS in protest have been witnessed occasionally but Friday’s resignation by Abdul Rauf Siddiqi from his post as Sindh’s industries minister is different. This occasion stands delineated from others because it appears to be about a senior government functionary’s frustration at his inability to plug the administrative holes that allowed Karachi’s fire tragedy to occur. Mr Siddiqi says that he found himself “helpless and with no authority to move against the people responsible” for the blaze that killed over 250 people. The tragedy is on a scale where heads would have rolled in countries in which politicians have more of a conscience than what is usually displayed by their counterparts in Pakistan. Yet while the country is no stranger to disasters that could either have been averted by proper administrative oversight or whose effects could have been mitigated by efficient administrative reaction, more often than not politicians are content to ride out the storm rather than shoulder any responsibility.

Mr Siddiqi’s resignation is a gesture that betrays more symbolism than culpability, for the key institutions responsible for safety measures and labour rights are the civil defence department and the labour ministry, neither of which fell under his purview as minister. Nevertheless, his move sends out a strong signal that may lend some small measure of strength to the bereaved. More importantly, though, the creaking edifice of administration and governmental oversight is in desperate need of a thorough overhaul. The labour inspection system needs to be revitalised — in the case of Sindh the bar on inspectors entering workplaces must be lifted. The most important thing officialdom can do in the memory of the victims of the country’s biggest industrial calamity is to make sure that such a tragedy does not happen again.