KARACHI, March 4: The high-level committee constituted to help resolve the lingering controversy involving the provincial and city governments over the control of KBCA could not convene its crucial meeting scheduled for Thursday
, reportedly owing to chief secretary's pre-occupation.
The two sides are at loggerheads since long and on February 10, the situation took a serious turn when city nazim Naimatullah Khan issued a notification for the setting up of a parallel organization named "District Municipal Office Building Control" with authority similar to that of the KBCA.
However, the nazim had to hold implementation of the notification in abeyance after having been assured by 'competent authority' that "the matters about the devolution of KBCA would be finalized in a week's time."
In his order dated February 11, whereby the February 10 notification was held in abeyance, the nazim stated that he had been assured by the competent authority that the governor had already formed a committee to look into the matter of the KBCA devolution.
However, despite a lapse of more than three weeks, no move on KBCA devolution is in sight. Meanwhile, independent sources in the KBCA and the CDGK have expressed the view that as long as the controversy lingered on, the uncertainty would continue to prevail and the KBCA officials would remain in a fix.
Expressing their dismay over the inordinate delay in the devolution of the KBCA and certain other departments, the sources said it was beyond their comprehension that why was the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), which introduced the new local government system in the country, playing a role of a silent spectator in this regard.
They hoped that the KBCA issue would die down to a great extent with the city nazim getting chief executive's powers. In this context, they referred to the perception that the KBCA had already come under the control of the CDGK as per the Sindh Local Government Ordinance promulgated in August 2001.
Other sources, however, were of the view that the tug of war over control of not only the KBCA, but the KWSB also, would continue until the Sindh Building Control Ordinance-1979 and the KWSB Act, whereby the two organizations were created, were repealed through the Sindh Assembly.
