‘Parliamentary Oversight Was Inadequate During Pandemic’
The standing committees of the Senate and the National Assembly held their meetings in February to deliberate the alarming situation of the pandemic but no major decision was taken at the highest public forum
The parliamentary oversight of the government’s coronavirus response showed signs of improvement but it remained inadequate.TDEA-FAFEN’s fifth monitoring report on COVID-19 governance said the standing committees of the parliament organized meetings to discuss the worsening situation of the pandemic virus in the country.
The standing committees of the Senate and the National Assembly held their meetings in February to deliberate the alarming situation of the pandemic and the legislators also raised queries seeking information regarding procurement of the vaccines and the vaccination plan but no major decision was taken at the highest public forum.
Highlighting inadequate oversight, the report said the parliamentary also questioned about procurement of coronavirus vaccines in the country and also about vaccination. However, it failed to play a decisive role.
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The report said, “The number of active COVID-19 cases surged as the third wave of the pandemic gripped the country. The trend from around the end of February was one of increasing infections as well as positivity rate, which grew from 3.6 percent in the first week of February to 5.8 percent in the second week of March”.
The report said with the administration of only 0.16 covid-19 vaccine doses per 100 people, the vaccination drive in Pakistan remained slower than expected, lagging behind such regional countries as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
It suggested that to effectively manage the third wave of COVID-19, Pakistan’s pandemic response will require a more proactive approach for ensuring not just a faster vaccination drive but more importantly, compliance with SOPs among the general public.
The third wave followed the lack of compliance with SOPs observed during February.
Even at public offices and health establishments, compliance with some of the key SOPs by the staff and visitors registered a decline from the previous month or remained low in February, the report explained.
“Social distancing, for instance, was observed not being followed at 30 percent of the public offices and 34 percent of the healthcare centers.”
