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Inter-ministerial coordination must to fight Covid-19 pandemic: Experts


Published : 16 Jul 2020 10:32 PM | Updated : 05 Sep 2020 04:48 AM

As some ministries get into the habit of not performing their respective responsibilities and engaging the entities in blame game in this pandemic situation, experts suggest effective coordination among relevant ministries to tackle the Covid-19 crisis and to get over the problems already developed centring mismanagement, corruption and irregularities.

With Bangladesh still not seeing the graph of downward trend in both death and infection, they said to prevent coronavirus transmission, inter-ministerial coordination and cooperation between each other must have to be strengthened right now, otherwise, the situation might go beyond control.

According to the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, at least six ministries of the government are supposed to work together to apply the laws and create an enabling environment in this regard, but they are scarcely playing their respective roles.

In many cases, they are found overlooking their own responsibilities and trying to blame each other for shifting their responsibilities, irregularities, mismanagement, corruptions and failures.

The National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 at its meeting held on July 10 iterated that six ministries--the health affairs, home affairs, foreign affairs, commerce, local government and civil aviation—have been tasked to work together to tackle the pandemic.

Professor Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah, president of the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, said “It is not possible to tackle the situation by the Ministry of Health alone. There are many things to do and that is why at least five to six ministries will have to work together.”

“But, it is very unfortunate that almost all the ministries concerned are in relaxed mode and do not play their due roles. And this is why, the extent of transmission of this deadly virus is now at a risky stage.”

Another member of the committee, Professor Dr. Iqbal Arslan said, “The Health Ministry should make policy, carry out test and health service activities while the Home Ministry should play the role of making people habituated with the health guidelines in the field level and also to prevent the transmission of the virus.

“Accordingly, the Local Government Ministry through its district administrations, city corporations and municipalities should play roles to make people aware of the disease and the things to do for the prevention of transmission of the virus”, he said, continuing

that the Ministry of Commerce should ensure business activities arerun following the health rules.
Besides, he said, the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Civil Aviation also have their defined responsibilities.
Health and Family Planning Minister ZahidMaleq, also the chairman of the committee, admitted that all the people of the country are not obeying the health guidelines. They are traveling here and there without wearing masks, but the health ministry alone cannot do everything in this regard.

“Law-enforcement authorities, city corporations, district administrations and many other authorities of the government are not coming forward in this regard.”, complained the health minister.

It also should be mentioned that many cases of irregularities and corruptions have been unearthed centring the Covid-19 samples test and treatment due to mismanagement and corruption by the officials concerned.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, member of parliament from Dhaka-9 constituency, said the government needs to ensure better coordination among different wings to send comprehensible messages to its citizens about Covid-19.

While speaking at a policy webinar on Smart Containment Strategies for Covid-19 in Bangladesh, organised by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), Brac University, the ruling party lawmaker said, people in Bangladesh do not really see the different ministries of the government as separate entities because the government is a single entity for them.

“I see some ministers keep on saying that this or that is not the responsibility of their ministries and other ministries should look into it,” he said, adding that this kind of statement makes people more confused about the whole Covid-19 situation.

“I think the government should have a spokesperson, who would provide all kinds of information about the situation to the citizens of Bangladesh,” he said.