Last week’s small squall arising out of the handling of the official disclosure that the strictures relating to Public Servants’ work schedules were being removed and that the COVID-19 curfew window was being pushed open further resulted largely from the brusque manner in which the announcement was made. A previous editorial has already made that comment. The second point that should be made is that while the inward and outward movement of the curfew door is necessary, every time that it has to happen it should be attended by explanations and assurances. These were manifestly necessary this time around, bearing in mind that the prevailing ‘numbers’ point to a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases over these past several weeks. They were not, to many people’s satisfaction, forthcoming.
The logic behind the recent ‘as you were’ directive to public servants with regard to returning to the normal work regime and the widening of the curfew window is understandable. Prudent management of the coronavirus crisis must take on board, simultaneously, both the public health and the socio-economic considerations that are part of the holistic management process. Neither of these can be left behind. There is no template here so that there will be times when it comes down to judgement calls and when that happens understandable public concerns will be raised. Government must deal with these concerns in the context of the wider situation that we are facing. Here is a case in which image-management should be an integral part of its public information process.
There will be occasions on which the wisdom of official decisions will be challenged by sections of the populace. There will also be occasions on which seeming anomalies will be questioned. Government has to live with those and to do so in a manner that is reflective of the sensitivities of a concerned population.
Some concerns have become the subject of animated public discourse. There exists, for example a fairly widespread view that the role of the police in ensuring the effective enforcement of the protective protocols put in place to try to limit the spread of the virus is far less effective than it ought to be and that one of the reasons for this is that some policemen carry out their duties in a manner that encourages rather than seeks to suppress the transgression of the protocols. There exists, as well, persuasive evidence of instances of seeming police indulgence of transgressions, not least an indifference of sizeable sections of the populace to the wearing of face masks.
It is for this reason that some people have remained altogether indifferent to the official announcement that 500 ranks from the GDF have joined the GPF ranks in their policing pursuits. They wonder whether the police high command should not, at this stage, be engaged on the question of delinquent ranks getting their act together so that the system can not only be physically strengthened (by the addition of the GDF ranks) but rendered more operationally effective than it presently is.
There is another related touchy (and possibly politically sensitive) issue that must be dealt with. It has to do with a widespread public feeling that selected places of entertainment offer their presumably influential patrons late night entertainment way beyond the curfew hours. Some of the night-time activity including sizeable numbers of parked cars, outside these places possibly point in the direction of possible truth to these claims. There is, as well, a widespread feeling that there might be instances in which these transgressions enjoy a generous measure of official sanction. Government needs to understand that the truth or otherwise of these claims still leaves it with the responsibility to put an end to practices which, in effect, are not just acts of substantive lawlessness but also acts of sabotage of the national effort to manage COVID-19 as best we can with the limited resources at the nation’s disposal. The transgressors in this particular regard are, in effect, saboteurs.
Carefully managed curfew regimes informed by judgements that are part of a holistic system for managing (or trying to manage) the pandemic are necessary. On the one hand we cannot afford to throw the doors of trade and commerce open whilst ignoring the public health implications of so doing. By the same token we simply must find ways of managing the public health implications of the pandemic without getting to a stage where we simply ‘board up’ the country’s economy and leave it to fall apart. This is a challenge that requires careful and measured thought and management and there is no doubt that there will be times when tough decisions must be made. There will be pushbacks, queries and public outbursts as well. That, in a democracy, is as it should be.
No doubt there will be other junctures at which important, even critical decisions will have to be made and it is the government’s responsibility to make those decisions. Going forward, however, it will find that people will continue to react badly to an approach on its part that leads them to believe that we are being governed by edict. Given the circumstances as they are, official decisions will be subject to query and sometimes even to vigorous public pushback and government has to learn to live with those realities.