EDITORIAL: It seems Pakistanis will have to wait a while not just for their internet connectivity to get better but also to understand what really caused the disruption.
The government’s delayed fallback on the faulty submarine cables narrative doesn’t seem to wash with too many people any longer, not the least because some internet service providers (ISPs) have also alleged that the government’s effort to monitor online traffic, including the infamous firewall, are behind the slowdown.
The bottom line is that internet speed is going to be slow for “another month”, according to official reports. That is going to affect the pace of work in most places, no doubt, but more importantly it is also going to hit the country’s budding IT industry and cost the exchequer to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s an outrage, especially if it turns out that it really owes to the state’s penchant for using its muscle to control what people say and do; even in the online space.
The first thing the government must address is the uncertainty. Letting a situation linger for weeks and then issue a justification that most people, even experts, doubt or disagree with is unacceptable.
The official machinery as well as the telecom sector should issue clear reports about the depth of the problem, measures being taken to address it, and the time when things will return to normal.
It’s been weeks since a premier online marketplace cautioned clients against engaging Pakistani freelancers because slow local internet speed could complicate timelines and compromise the platform’s reputation as well. Yet there’s not been so much as a word out of the government about the harm that is coming to IT professionals.
It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that the new finance minister boasted that a rising and thriving IT industry would help redefine our economic/financial trajectory; just like almost all finance ministers before him.
Now we know that this claim, just like the promise about equitable across-the-board taxation, was just a lot of hot air not backed by any sort of concrete policy or even proper intent. It’s a shame that our own government forces us to walk backwards when the whole world is embracing IT and advancing towards a world dominated by historic breakthroughs in AI technology.
A few decades ago, IT advancement was more or less uniform in the South-East Asian region. But with time almost all countries have moved forward except Pakistan. First it was the failure of our leadership to identify new trends and incentivise industries of the future.
Now, if claims about the firewall are true, the government itself seems to have gone a step too far and possibly engaged in sabotaging what little momentum has been grudgingly built over the last few years.
Once again, the people deserve and demand clarity. And it is the government’s duty to deliver it. Also, now that it’s seen how little it takes to rattle the IT sector perhaps it will give more thought to strengthening and expanding its small base, which will trigger a chain reaction, starting from producing properly trained professionals all the way to erecting a market to feed them into. That will be good for the country and good for the ruling party as well. But none of it will be possible without reliable internet connectivity.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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