Asad Umer emphases to keep economy running and prevent spread of Covid-19

ISLAMABAD: The Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umer Tuesday said that the government would keep the economy running and prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference at Islamabad with Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on health Dr Zafar Mirza, he said, “In a country like Pakistan, if we say we won’t have a lockdown at all, the disease will spread very fast and people will start losing jobs because they will be too sick […] there is no country in the world that would say it is not going to enforce a lockdown.”

He said, “if you enforce too strict a lockdown, people won’t get food and then there is no way they will not come out on the streets and our efforts to control the spread will fail.”

The minister added that the government had formed a National Command Centre which would start functioning from today. Representatives from all the departments working to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and from all the provinces have been included in the command centre, he said.

“During the last meeting of the National Coordination Committee, we decided to increase cooperation on an operational level to ensure that voices of the provinces are heard at the federal level and federal decisions are easily communicated to the provinces,” he said. He added that the National Command Centre would be headed by Lt General Mehmood-uz-Zaman.

Umar said that the government has created a mechanism through the NCC and the National Command Centre to monitor utility stores throughout the country, adding that the government had allocated Rs50 billion to be given to utility stores.

He also said that the government would ensure that some remote areas in the country that previously imported goods from Iran received all the essential items.

‘Do not treat coronavirus patients like criminals’

Umar urged the nation to not treat coronavirus patients like “criminals”, adding that it would lead to people not reporting symptoms out of fear. He asked the authorities to ensure that it does not happen.

SAPM Mirza also said that reports of patients being criminalised were “extremely saddening”. He added that this would scare people and they would not come forward to report cases and thus harm the government’s efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

‘Have to ensure production of essential items continues’

Meanwhile, Hammad Azhar said that it was important to continue production of essential items and to keep such industries and their value-chain industries running.

“We have made lists of retailers, manufacturers and industries that produce these items. We have distributed these lists to provinces (which were compiled with their help) … that these industries need to continue production, and we need to ensure that raw material and the labour needed are given to them.”

Adding that there was no need for hoarding and panic-buying, he said that the government was working day and night to ensure that the demand for essential items could be met.

Azhar said the Cabinet had approved an Economic Stimulus and Relief Package which had already been approved by the Economic Coordination Committee a day earlier.

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