SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant came out strongly in defence of his and his government’s work and choice of path taken in managing the COVID-19 situation. ‘People keep saying there has not been a CM like this but the truth is there has not been a pandemic like this in 100 years,’ the Chief Minister said, pointing out that only he and the government know the reality on the ground and how to deal with it.
The government of course knows better the reality of the situation. What the people know is that there are thousands of persons getting infected by the day and that in recent days 50 to 60 of those infected have been dying every day. That is the ground reality. That is what should have been avoided. That is what the people cannot bear to see – their loved ones contracting the virus and being rushed to hospitals not knowing whether they will return home from there or be taken straight to a burial or cremation ground. This is the reality that Goans have been living with for the past weeks and it has not yet ended.
And they have the right to criticise and ask questions of the government. They have paid their taxes and they expect the government to work for them. When they are seeing such suffering, don’t they have the right to ask what the government they elected is doing? So they are using the social media to do that. A government has to be receptive of criticism and take it as advice for a course correction wherever it is needed. It is not just the people, but the opposition, by raising issues, is doing the same and is doing what it has been elected to do, just as the mainstream media does its job by flagging the concerns of the people. Nothing wrong in that. So why does the CM get into defensive mode?
There is no evidence to suggest that any other government would have acted differently. Attempting to make such a claim would be pure speculation. But the fact is that there was a lot that could have been done which was not done. The unprecedented situation that the State finds itself in today is the culmination of a series of wrong decisions – at times no decisions – taken in the past weeks. For instance, was making COVID negative certificates from tourists really such a difficult decision to take that the courts had to mandate it? When States around Goa were adding COVID-19 cases by the thousands everyday and had locked down to curtail the spread, Goa was still welcoming tourists. When in late March 35 employees of an offshore casino tested positive and a building in Porvorim was declared a micro-containment zone, Goa was still in denial mode.
As the pandemic raged and worsened in April, there was little that the government did to bring down the numbers. And, does the Chief Minister want to blame buyers at fish markets for the increase in cases? What about the campaign for the elections in five towns? See how cases listed under the Margao Urban Health Centre have been rising. Currently, Margao UHC is the only health centre that has over 2000 active cases. There will be criticism because the people feel that they deserve to get better treatment from the government. That is the least that is expected. Can there be more service, better management of the pandemic and less recrimination? The last does not help anybody.
