PIMS tragedy exposes bad governance as Naqvi meets Zardari in London

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also held a detailed meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in London, in which he conveyed an important message to the president. The matter is that the country’s two major political parties do not appear ready to carry out the major reforms whose time has come. The public is falling victim to the worst governance, but policymakers sitting in the traditional system perhaps think that things will go on like this. Perhaps they can no longer do so.

Pakistan is helping to resolve major diplomatic and Law and Order issues around the world, yet its own system of governance raises many questions. Bad governance is now the story of every city, whether the issue is Law and Order, provision of justice, security, Health facilities or the basic right to education. The present system has failed to give the common man his rights because it cannot even fulfil its basic responsibilities. Most civil institutions, including education, Health and the police, have lost even their minimum capacity. Now one tragedy after another is shaking us every day and showing that change in the present system has become unavoidable.

The recent PIMS tragedy is an extremely sad picture of this same failure. The loss of newborn lives is not merely an accident at one hospital. It raises the question of for whom, and under what system, our state institutions are running. If questions arise about basic safety arrangements, emergency response, monitoring and administrative responsibilities at a major federal hospital, the matter is not limited to the negligence of a few individuals. It becomes a question about the performance of the entire system.

The tragedy made headlines in the media across the world. The world saw that the most important and largest hospital in the capital of Pakistan lacked basic firefighting equipment and trained staff. It was not that PIMS had no funds or was short of staff. The annual budget of PIMS exceeds Rs7.5 billion, equal to the funds of all military hospitals in the Rawalpindi division. Yet when the fire broke out, it emerged that many staff members were not even at their duty posts. No training had been given to staff for several years to deal with incidents such as fires.

There was no system of rescue or emergency alert in case of a fire in the newborn nursery of the Mother and Child Hospital, its most sensitive area. The shortcomings identified after a fire in the PIMS nursing hostel a few months ago were ignored by everyone.

The fire safety bodies under the district administration and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) also did not fulfil their responsibility. Everyone, as always, thought that things would go on as they were. Then last week’s sad incident claimed the lives of 14 newborns. Imagine, if this is the condition of the biggest hospital in Islamabad, what must be the state of hospitals across the country, especially in areas far from provincial centres.

As after every major tragedy, an inquiry committee was formed this time too and officials were suspended. The CDA began fining and sealing buildings, a process likely to continue for the next few days. After that, everyone will forget the incident and wait for a new tragedy.

Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal has said on several occasions since the tragedy that he has no authority to appoint or remove anyone at PIMS, from an office boy to the head. He said the PIMS system had rotted and nothing could be fixed there. Federal ministers are now compelled to say that the present system has become dysfunctional and cannot give the public anything.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said a few weeks ago that, whether one accepts it or not, the present system has collapsed and politicians must sit together. The fact is that politicians are not ready to sit together on this, because changing the system threatens the monopoly of the traditional political parties. Through the 18th Amendment, these parties handed the local government system to the provinces and made it ineffective. Obstacles were then placed even in the way of introducing that ineffective system. As a result, voices calling for a change of system have now begun to rise from within the system itself.

Whether politicians or the bureaucracy, faces are changed in Pakistan, but problems keep growing instead of being solved. What is needed here is not merely new governments but a new governance model, one in which decision-making is close to citizens, authority is clear and responsibility for results is also clear.

This is why the debate on smaller and empowered administrative units needs to be taken forward seriously. Large provinces, large departments and highly centralised administrative structures appear to be signs of a strong state, but in practice they often slow decision-making and make accountability vague. Citizens do not even know who is responsible for their basic problems.

A file keeps travelling from one department to another, one office to another and one officer to another, but the problem is not solved. Smaller administrative units can offer a possible solution. When administrative boundaries are relatively small, powers are clear and local administration has adequate financial and administrative autonomy, government comes closer to citizens. Decisions can be taken faster, local problems can be identified better and, in case of failure, it becomes easier to fix responsibility on a person or institution.

It is also true that merely creating new administrative units will not solve problems. Large-scale governance reforms will also have to be carried out. But these reforms are futile under the present administrative model. The local government system, too, will be able to deliver for the public only when unrealistic administrative units are made fit for governance.

In the coming weeks, the debate on new administrative units is likely to gather pace, which will also raise the political temperature. Political parties, especially the country’s two major parties, will have to take some big decisions.