Convenient Ruse
Unfortunately, government cannot be begrudged its due. The lockdown coming as it did when it did would well be accounted to its novelty and inexperience. But nothing thereafter. There is a tremendous lacuna in gauging national resources and national need. It is as if government decision making is ad hoc. Taking stock of the situation would have had better homework done. There is by and large a willing population scared as they are of the ‘info-demics’ of the pandemic. The population is being bombarded by so much on the COVID-19 that only the rabid suicidal would challenge it. Security forces on the ground are there just to dissuade those who would lounge publicly, tired as they already are of the isolation. It is remarkable that in the fourth week running of the lockdown force has had to be used in the c context of government delays on decisions regarding those who would want to restore home whether from one part of the country to another or from another country to the home country. Force has also had to be used to regulate the distribution of vital foods stuffs and the likes. On both these accounts, it is the system that is at fault. Enough problem- solving home work has simply not been done.
Indeed, it is as if government is allowing itself the luxury of ineptness behind the pandemics. Firstly, it has yet to say what is the total sample population it intends to test. It is this magic number that will determine the quantity of standardized equipment for the tests and for those testing and being tested. It will also determine the size of manpower and logistics it intends to muster. It is a collection of these assessments that will actually determine the cost of the anti- Corona battle. Having determined this cost, it is only then that the country can proceeds towards determining the actual cost to the economy of the pandemic which will then make it possible to evolve a policy designed to cushion and overturn the setback to the state. On the face of it, the ad hoc-ism remains. It is only now that the term micro-biology is surfacing in the pandemic vocabulary. Government seemed for quite a while blind to the manpower possibilities of the universities as a contributing force to the tests. Take even the laboratories of empty academic institutions teaching science and their staff. As it is, all this only reflects the bankruptcy of a system not designed to build but to destruct in order to be flipped to power.
And it is power politics that evidently hinders progress in battling the pandemic. No, this does not mean that the government is being opposed. This certainly means that the government is being sabotaged. Prime Minister Oli is sick no doubt. But how much of this nonperformance may be accounted to his ailment and how much to his ailing party has become a matter of much public discussion. The virtual lack of public mobilization at the party level is being seen as the state of affairs in his party. The party dominates all local government except in the tarai and it is the local governments that are being accused of ham-handedness in the delivery of relief to a locked down population. Oli’s central committee stalemate is now old hat. One understands rebellion now is seething in the cabinet its. What is sad is that opposition continues to have external sponsors and party rivals even at this stage.
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