Dear Minister,

Let me start by saying that I have nothing against you personally. It is not your fault that you were appointed minister of health at a time when the world is dealing with an unprecedented sanitary crisis. You would perhaps have been no better or worse than any of your colleagues had Covid-19 not put you in the spotlight.

Sadly, Covid came and shed very powerful lights on you and prevented you from doing what many of your colleagues are adept at doing: hiding their amateurism, ineptitude and dilettantism. And sadly again, you started accumulating blunders and trying to cover them with half-truths and more blunders.

Your first amusing performance was in March 2020, when you stood in parliament and uttered swaggeringly the notorious sentence: “Unfortunately, Mr Speaker Sir, we don’t have a single case of Coronavirus in this country.” I hope you meant ‘fortunately’ but the whole thing was unfortunate as the prime minister announced, at almost the same time, that we had not one but three cases of Coronavirus. I don’t know how you must have felt but I personally felt for you. Humiliation is a terrible thing, particularly by an uncaring boss. But you sat next to him and turned the other cheek.

The Hyperpharm saga, where manna from heaven started pouring on your pal Ashvin Bundhun made another dent to your credibility. You told us that you didn’t know the guy but we soon discovered that in fact, not so long ago, you both sat side by side on the Medical Council. That bout of forgetfulness betrayed some carefully concealed character traits we didn’t know you possessed. 

Then came the Pack and Blister episode where we paid Rs476 million for medical equipment to a company belonging to an ex-convict, including 51 faulty ventilators that had to be returned. Up until now, there is no indication that we will ever get our hard-earned money back! This was followed by contracts to jewellers, birthday party organisers and drugstores, the other State Trading Corporation emergency tenders and Rs1,3 billion siphoned from the public purse.

In spite of all this, I don’t blame you for those blunders and failings as much as I blame you for your ignorance and misplaced arrogance. I have listened to most of your speeches in parliament and monologues at press conferences. I do not recall once hearing you display any knowledge of what is going on in the field of research on Covid. Nothing about the medications used in some countries and how effective or ineffective they have been. Nothing about how other countries were readying themselves for successive waves and how that inspired you to initiate something similar. Not a single instance where we could feel that you have a vision of any kind that could redeem you from the bad start you had. Some countries were building specialised mobile hospitals to prepare for the second and third waves that they saw coming. Others set up designated places for the dead whose numbers were increasing. Your efforts were concentrated almost entirely on massaging the figures, thumping your chest and criticising the opposition, the press and later the population that was not taking precautions at a time when you were telling them everything was under control. 

After initially denying the existence of Covid, your broken record got stuck on how great you and your government were and how well you managed to deal with the virus. Your arrogance reached a peak when you started giving lessons to the world in Covid management. Then came the vaccination and you indulged in more chest thumping. Even when cases started piling up, some directly related to an overwhelmed and overstretched health system that you did nothing to prepare for a situation you should have seen coming; even as we hit 99 dead last week alone; even when 22 out of the 24 intubated people died, according to the figures you yourself gave in parliament, the self-glorification didn’t stop. You went as far as to say you were ‘proud’! Seriously? 

So I am writing to you because I believe in your ability to still do the honourable thing: listening to the leader of the opposition and the 90.51per cent (at the time of writing) of those who voted in the Top FM poll asking for your resignation. I sincerely believe this would give the opportunity to one of your colleagues to build a better relationship with the population and possibly earn its lost trust. S/he may not necessarily be more able or less of a disaster than you. But s/he will have the advantage of a clean slate. This would be better for you, for your government and for the country.

I reiterate that I have nothing personal against you, Minister, and that, in the interest of the country, I must tell you that it’s time you packed up and stopped causing blisters. It’s really time to go!

Yours faithfully,

Touria Prayag