IMC to return PPE to donor

The Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC), after failing to convince its sanitary workers for wearing the safety kits, has decided to return the same to the donor Inter-faith League Against Poverty (ILAP), Director Sanitation Sardar Khan Zimri disclosed on Thursday.

"We have conveyed to the ILAP that the IMC is ready to return the personal protective kits as the workers cannot wear it in the current hot weather due to its weather-unfriendly stuff," he said while talking to APP.

Zimri said about 600 sanitary workers were given the kits to ensure their safety from the coronavirus but most of them refused to wear due to the prevailing hot and humid weather.

The ILAP, Zimri said, had asked the IMC to ensure wearing of the kits by force or return the same. Some of the workers were compelled to wear the safety kits but they felt uncomfortable and became unconscious while performing their duty under the sun, he noted.

The IMC director said about 40 per cent staff of the sanitation department comprised of women, who had never expressed willingness to wear the kits.

Commenting over the development, ILAP Chairman Sajid Ishaq, however, said: "The IMC is making lame excuses just to cover its incompetency and mismanagement."

Sajid said his organisation had provided 1,000 safety kits of international standards to the IMC sanitation department, which included face shields, goggles, gloves, protective suits and masks. However, the IMC had failed to ensure that all the workers wear the safety kits, he added.

The ILAP chairman said the IMC could not understand the use of kits and failed to follow the SOPs (standard operating procedures) in that regard.

"I have seen the workers who put the protective suits on already worn clothes, which negates the SOPs, set for its use," he remarked.

A sanitary worker, who got a kit from the IMC, said: "It is not made to fit our weather as it undermines the efficiency of our work."

Joint Christian Action Committee Rawalpindi and Islamabad President Basharat Khokhar, however, rejected the notion that all the sanitary workers had received the safety kits.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2020.