KARACHI: Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday have expressed dissatisfaction over relief work being carried out by Sindh and Balochistan governments for the victims of rains. They recommended change in the system of the government dependent with involving local community based organizations, notables and social welfare department in the relief distribution.
The event titled ‘Issues during Flood Emergency’ was organised by Participatory Development Initiatives and Oxfam Novib held at a local hotel, which was attended by advisors of government, lawmakers of Sindh Assembly and representatives of the civil society organizations in large number. The Advisor to Chief Minister for Relief Department and PML-Q leader Haleem Adil Shaikh speaking in the event as chief guest said that if there are problems in the government systems, the relief systems of the international NGOs are also not up to the mark.
“If things are 90 per cent wrong in the government, there are 10 percent wrong things in the international NGOs,” he added. He said that majority of international NGOs are interested in collecting data in place of supporting the flood affected communities in real sense. Shaikh while discussing the heavy losses in the floods of 2012 said that besides, heavy rains, cuts in the fields and protection bunds by the influential peoples and breaches in the canals due to no proper maintenance were responsible for the heavy damages. He acknowledged that there was no proper contingency planning by the government for the floods and the amount to the district governments for the flood relief operations were also not released timely by the provincial finance department.
He said that it is wrong to declare emergency in only relief department during the floods but there should be emergency in all the departments including education, health, livestock etc during this situation. He regretted that although political leaders were criticising the government performance in flood relief but there was no single political party out in the field to support the flood MPA Nusrat Sahar Abbasi of PML-F said that the government had completely failed in providing timely relief to the flood affected communities during 2012 floods.
She alleged that not only funds were not released timely but even there was corruption rampant in the flood relief funds. She said that relief was provided on political basis and a large number of flood affected communities were not provided support by the government only because they were not the voters and supporters of the government party.PPP MPA Aisha Khoso said that PPP government tried its best to support the flood affected communities, however, there were certainly some flaws. She said that there is need to make the local government effective for improving disaster risk management as well as disaster relief mechanisms.
Ex-Secretary Irrigation Idrees said that lack of drainage system in Jacobabad region was the major cause of flooding of the area along with other others causes. He said that both the provinces did not allow the flood water of each province to other province areas which also resulted in heavy losses in the floods. PDI Director Sikander Brohi, Zulifqar Shah from Piler, Ramzan Memon of Bhandar Harri Sangat, Saleem Abbasi from Peoples Accountability Commission on floods (PACF) and rain-hit communities from Jacobabad, Naseerabad and Jaffarabad also shared views.
