Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

emained on board. This state of affairs did not inspire much confidence. If the
pre-emptive plans and other attendant arrangements required careful planning,
diligent focus to engage the entire chain of managers, amongst others, to identify
department specific deficiencies for capacity building, to develop a framework
and requisite personnel skills, had become a statutory obligation. The scale of
disaster that preceded the creation of the NDMA or the one that visited the
country four years later dictated organizational approach which was not visible.
50. The review highlighted critical gaps in the pre-disaster stage actions /
initiatives despite passage of 44 months since the establishment of the NDMA in
December 2006. Organizational capacity to plan and devise a framework for
prediction, ability to forecast with reasonable degree of certitude, use of modern
tools of early warning possibilities by a well developed scientific discipline that
could reduce wide-band of south-Westerly monsoons predictions or potential
hazards of rising global warming and consequential glacier melting with
dependable precision, to minimize losses of life & property and prevent damage
to fledgling infrastructure or even sensitize all concerned, in time. If the official
minutes of 28 th June were released after 3-weeks, on 19 th July, 2010 that contain
commitments to secure funds for some urgent works, what urgency could it instil
in others down the line; no more needs to be said about the misplaced sense of
pre-occupation of the apex NDMA. The people expected much more
responsibility and commitment from the professionals of a nuclear Pakistan,
especially after 2005 earthquake, to help save its hapless from vagaries of
nature/weather, combined with laid back attitude of the supposedly ‘well trained’
irrigation professionals whose acts and omissions contributed considerably to a
massive loss of Rs. 855 billion budgeted for national debt service liability in fiscal
2010-11. For a country already exposed to, and reeling under the twin man-made
or self-inflicted disasters of war and terrorism, both ripping through the very
national fabric, it was too much. That out of this, almost Rs. 560 billion (425+135)
was suffered by the rural agricultural sector to virtually rob them off the recent
gains from higher commodity prices is a cause of additional concern. If the public
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