No Watershed Moment

The ongoing power-tussle among the key stakeholders has put all the other life and death issues on the backburner, including the plight of millions of flood-affected people, who await relief and rehabilitation despite the passage of more than two-and-a-half-months since the natural calamity submerged nearly one-third of Pakistan.

The floods, caused by the record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in July-August this year, left more than 1,500 people dead and over 13,000 injured, while hundreds of thousands were rendered homeless in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

The devastation caused by these floods has been unprecedented and poses enormous challenges for the beleaguered Shehbaz Sharif government, which is under intense criticism because of the poor handling of the economy, including record inflation and slowdown of the economic activities across Pakistan.

Notwithstanding the magnitude of the flood crisis, what is lamentable is the lack of intent and effort on part of the government to help the flood affected people. The government has failed to ensure prompt and regular supplies of food and other relief goods for the majority of the people displaced and affected by the floods. The rehabilitation work has yet to start for the grief stricken people, a majority of whom are still sitting under the open skies with little or no hope of their woes being addressed anytime soon.

Though the government’s propaganda machine has been boasting about its rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts since August, the ground realities contradict these claims.

According to the recent surveys conducted by the local and foreign NGOs working in Balochistan, Sindh and KP, as many as 80 percent of the flood affected people still await even the nominal assistance from the authorities.

The foreign aid, though falling short of the desired response, has neither been fully accounted for nor efficiently disbursed by the coalition government that has earned the ire of the affected people as well as donors.

The rehabilitation of these people should have been the top item on the government’s agenda, especially when extreme winters are round the corner. The winters are bound to exacerbate the plight of the flood affected people, particularly in Balochistan and the KP where the temperatures have begun to drop at a rapid rate.

In a nutshell, the government remains callously oblivious to the plight of the flood-hit people. The environment ministry and affiliated authorities are quick to blame the flash floods on climate change, but they continue to display a non-serious approach and have not initiated any measures to thwart a repeat of the disaster witnessed this year or the years before.

So far the authorities have hardly shown any steadfastness to put together any well-thought-out strategy for disaster mitigation or made efforts to avoid such catastrophes.

Regretfully, the massive destruction caused by the floods have not impacted the deep slumber of the disaster management authorities either, as they have been found missing in action during the floods. No visible measures have been undertaken to construct new dams and the drainage systems in the cities, or to uplift the existing infrastructure of roads, nullahs etc.

Various village communities, residing close to the river banks, have also slammed the government and local authorities for allowing builders to reconstruct hotels at the same spots where they were built earlier. It became obvious that these hotels and markets blocked the natural waterways which compounded the miseries of the villagers and the tourists. But instead of clamping down on violators, there has been talk of big kickbacks to allow the same hotel and shop owners to have their way again.

It is imperative that the welfare of people takes precedence over all else if Pakistan has to make any headway in the comity of nations. However, the prevalent scenario makes it clear that the people of this country are the government’s last priority.