Safety at public events

KARACHI: I admire the PTI on many counts. But that does not stop me from being equally critical about their other shortcomings. The PTI needs to demonstrate better skills at managing its public events. People, even unconsciously, evaluate a party for its capacity to efficiently execute, manage and deliver on whatever it has taken upon itself.

By now, the PTI ought to have learnt the not so complex science of stage making and stage management. Regretfully, this has not yet happened. The stage access is always rickety and precarious — despite their leader having already experienced a life threatening fall. The technology for curbing the compulsion of every one and his step-grandfather to push-fit in every square inch of the stage and others to hang around like sardines has yet not been discovered by the PTI.

This and many other routine aspects, relating to public events, suggest inadequate planning and management. Safety of people ought to be a prime concern at all the public functions. Hazard identification and risk assessment are no longer unknown or inaccessible subjects. No public event must be allowed to go ahead, unless its organisers can demonstrate that all unsafe possibilities have been considered and accounted for. Should not our political parties first demonstrate a basic sense of care and well-being for ordinary people, before promising more lofty ideals?

Naeem Sadiq

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2014.

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