Chief minister a man of many ‘talents’

Government seems as clueless about the situation as it was on day one; don't know how wide the ‘contamination zone’ is

The recent issue involving the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, that has been responsible for the loss of more than 80 lives so far, has exposed the charade of good governance in the province.

Even though two weeks have passed since the story broke, the government seems as clueless about the situation as it was on day one. It does not even know for sure how wide the ‘contamination zone’ is.

According to some reports, the contaminated medicine has been handed out to more than 4,500 people from the PIC pharmacy. But the number is on the lower side because the government has tracked only the batches that were delivered to the PIC pharmacy. Only a full investigation, if handled properly, could expose the extent of damage spurious and substandard drugs have caused.

Yesterday at the Punjab Assembly, Parliamentary Health Secretary Dr Saeed Elahi said that the government had decided to also withdraw a huge batch of aspirin suspected of being contaminated. Aspirin is a widely used drug. There is no guarantee that the factory that produced the batch believed to have been contaminated supplied the drug to only the PIC.

Now take a few facts into account: There are about 38 departments in the Punjab. Only nine ministers are looking after these departments. Some ministers are in charge of three to four departments.

None of these ministers heads the Health Department, in a province that is home to about 90 million people.

The chief minister is supposed to be the one in charge of the Health Department in addition to another 13 departments that include communication and works, home, local government, implementation and coordination, S&GAD, information and culture.

How on earth can a man, even if he is a workaholic, oversee so many of such important departments? It’s no wonder that the bureaucracy is overburdened. Even if the chief minister decided to keep charge of two departments – home and health – the number of employees he’d be overseeing would be about 300,000.

Why can’t the CM delegate so some relief could be accorded to the hapless people of the province? If he delegates, then he can hold the minister in charge accountable for messes like the one the PIC is in.The chief minister has never explained why he likes wearing 14 hats.

There had been calls to appoint a full-time health minister when dengue fever reared its head but they were ignored. Now we are staring at another epidemic-like situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2012.