Coronavirus crisis may have a silver lining for Pakistan: Nisar Memon

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Senator Nisar Memon has the gut feeling that since every crisis has a silver lining, this proverbial statement could true for us in Pakistan.

“If we analyze, comprehend, articulate the crisis and respond unitedly in a befitting manner. Coronavirus crisis has brought in open the inequalities between haves and have-nots, privileged and nonprivileged, urban and peri-urban, rural and urban,” he wrote in a recent newspaper article 

“The responses to crisis vary from educated to uneducated, disciplined to undisciplined, selfless to selfish, individualist to collectivist, socialist to capitalist. It is these times, the leaders fall or new leaders emerge. Irrespective of where one is in this global crisis, some common requirements emerge,” he thought. 

“The first is the public health system which requires medical supplies and equipment for millions, at the same time. The locked-down of cities disrupting way of life and confinement to homes, requiring availability of food and daily use supplies for millions, with transport system closed, and supply chain disrupted almost coming to standstill,” the Senator explained 

“Life is changed and will change after this crisis; we have to brace the changes. As we have been left behind in our development, this is an opportunity to leapfrog in progress by not waiting for changes to confront us but take the lead to bring the changes,” he reckoned. 

“Break the begging bowl and be the proud citizens of a sovereign country. This requires us to be self-respecting by being self-reliant in our requirements. Post Coronavirus; we have to look inward and examine all public health system requirements, as well as food and daily use supplies with objective of manufacturing them in the country,” the former federal minister suggested. 

“Basically it is supporting the existing industries to upgrade for producing competitive products for import substitution. In addition, encourage new industries to maximize domestic manufacturing to fill other gaps. The small scale home-based industries need to be part of policy towards self-sufficiency and job creation, and not part of political rhetoric. Hand in hand, the agriculture and agro-based industries will have to be focused,” he continued. 

“The existing education system also has to be aligned. The current engineering, agriculture and business universities are natural allies in these policies to support not only education but research and technology in support of policies. Information technology and artificial intelligence are the vehicles for leapfrogging,” he opined. 

“The leadership must understand, brick and mortar policies alone are not the solution. Industrial model like Sialkot is the living example of what private sector is capable of doing, even without much of government support. Industries like surgical goods, sports and women-only industries coupled with airport and airline make us proud as sovereign country. We must build on these models to accelerate much needed export. Let us not be overtaken by emotions or fear while preparing our coming budget. Status quo mindset of balancing the budget to meet IMF loan repayments must be replaced with major effort of import substitution as the key driver. This will help save billions of dollars for our conventional and non-conventional security,” Senator Nisar Memon explained.