The government is caught unprepared by the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Its sycophants are not proving helpful to meet the crisis. It has yet to put into place an economic package for dealing with financial predicaments that has come in the wake of the pandemic. There is urgent need of facing the hardship of the policies of shutdown and house quarantine.
Expatriate workers are coming back in big numbers on daily basis. The government decision to shut big shopping malls in the capital from March 25 to 31 is going to lay off big number of workers.
There is a growing fear that many garment factories may face closure as buyers are slashing orders and not placing new orders. If hundreds and thousands of workers lose jobs the impact will be severe. So the government should slash expenditure on big projects and such other expenditure on politically run projects to make resources available to the special fund.
But the big question is how the rising wave of the jobless will survive. Hunger and starvation that may hit the jobless will be more painful and devastating for the poor and middle income people. Never before such calamity had hit the nation so quick and so unprepared.
In the midst of near collapsing economy, macroeconomic stability is going to be totally in a mess. There is no money for big projects for big political shows.
Steps are needed to mobilize resources from multinational agencies for meeting the new economic demands caused by the virus. Our reputation for corruption may diminish confidence that the money will not be squandered. So the government has to assure that the foreign assistance will go to the affected persons.
Not only the country’s external trade is dependent on remittance to pay the import bills, the government development expenditures is also largely funded from part of this remittance. The rural economy is running well from the cash expatriates send to their families.
All such things are going to face severe economic destabilisation and it is time that emergency response system should be prepared to keep the financial remains under control.
It will not be easy for the government that has been pursuing the policy that for the good of the country they alone are sufficient. There should be no room for others. The distrust among our people and the government should be worrying and must not continue. Any idea of working together is not in sight. We are deeply disturbed by the fumbling and shifting policy decisions when the prospect of deaths in thousands of our people looming large.
