| 19 May 2004 | Wednesday | 28 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Mass transit for cities
Lacking coordination
The assassination of the head of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in Baghdad on Monday serves to convey one message loud and clear: the Iraqi people are not going to put up with the US-led occupation of their country.
The car bomb that killed Mr Izzedin Salim and five others is just one more manifestation of the anger the Iraqis are seething with. What the world is witnessing in that unfortunate country is more than a guerilla war: it is a full-blown insurgency, and it has the backing of all Iraqis.
The fact that the bomb blast was targeted specifically against the IGC members travelling in a convoy shows the people's contempt for men who are seen to be collaborating with the occupying powers.
On June 30, there is to be a 'transfer' of power to a provisional government. For the Iraqi people of all shades of opinion this will be a non-event, because those in the new government will in no way be different from the ones now on the IGC.
The task before the proposed new provisional government will be even more difficult, for it will be called upon to restore peace and normality at a time when the situation is worse than ever since the ouster of the Saddam regime.
Fulfilling that task will be an impossibility for a group of men seen as American loyalists. Only the true representatives of the Iraqi people can pull the country out of the present morass. But the question is: who represents the people of Iraq? Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr has many detractors, but that should not obscure the fact that his Mehdi army has challenged the American occupation successfully.
Earlier, the Sunni triangle was up in arms - and with a vengeance, going by what happened in Fallujah and elsewhere. The anger stemming from the prisoner abuse scandal has begun to cut across the Shia-Sunni divide, and a new unified Iraqi national resistance movement seems to be in the process of emerging.
The truth is that America is now hopelessly trapped in an Iraqi Vietnam and has no credible strategy for extricating itself out of it. What will happen on June 30 will be a sham transfer of power, for the country will continue to be under occupation.
As President George Bush said in his address on Sunday, American troops will stay on in Iraq beyond July 1. Last November he said the American troops would be there till Iraq "is free and peaceful".
This is vague and makes the Iraqis feel that the occupation is open-ended. This will only fuel Iraqi unrest and lead to more violence, and more body bags reaching the US. If Washington wants an end to the crisis in Iraq, the only solution lies in an early election under UN supervision.
An orderly election will be possible only when the UN is inducted with full authority to put an Iraqi infrastructure in place before elections are held. If America does not expedite the process of inducting the UN, there is every possibility that the anarchy now raging in Iraq will engulf other parts of the Middle East.
This will hardly be the way to win the hearts and minds of the Arab people and usher in an era of democracy and harmony in the Arab world.
Mass transit for cities
The Karachi city government's announcement that it has signed a preliminary agreement with a Chinese consortium to build a double-track light rail network is welcome provided that this time the project actually gets off the ground.
The reason for this scepticism is the bitter experience Pakistan's largest two cities - Karachi and Lahore - have had in trying to have in place systems of mass transit.
Their inability to do so comes at a high cost, which the commuting public has to pay in terms of having to use a public transport system that by and large fails to provide reliable, speedy and safe travel.
At least 10 feasibility studies have been carried out over the years for a mass transit system for Karachi. In 1996 a memorandum of understanding was signed between a Canadian consortium and a local partner to build such a system but nothing came of it.
In the case of Lahore, the Punjab government announced in January 2003 that a 34-km long light rail system would be ready "by the end of 2004". However, that project was cancelled and reports are that fresh bids are to be invited.
Perhaps to assure the sceptics, the Sindh governor has said that the government will "fully cooperate" with the Chinese investors to ensure that the project moves forward. Over 15 kilometres in length, half the mass transit system in Karachi will be underground, half above.
Estimated to cost over half a billion dollars, it will be built along the city's busiest commuter corridor. Ninety per cent of the financing will come from a concessionary loan to the city government by China's Exim Bank while the rest the city government will provide.
What with population and vehicular increases over the years, Karachi's traffic arteries are fully saturated - characterized as they are by extreme congestions, increased travelling times for commuters and air and noise pollution.
The need for an alternative mass transit system, to service the millions who travel to and from work every day in public transport which is far from reliable or safe, is immense.
Given the city's bitter experience in the past of broken promises and half-starts, its government will have to see to it that the project is completed according to schedule, and that fares are affordable. Lahore, too, should finalize its plans for a mass transit system.
Lacking coordination
According to an Asian Development Bank report, confusion over the responsibilities of civic agencies in Rawalpindi has adversely affected the quality of the services being provided.
The report points out that the people of Rawalpindi have to suffer from inadequate supply of water, poor sewerage, bad roads and other such amenities because of a lingering confusion among city planners and developers as to which agency is responsible for what service.
The lack of proper civic amenities in Rawalpindi has been a cause of complaint by sections of residents for some time now. The ADB report suggests that aside from the usual inefficiency witnessed in large cities of Pakistan in the provision and management of civic services, an added factor is the uncertainty and confusion related to the slow and halting transfer of powers to the local government under the devolution plan.
The ADB says that the plan has created a situation where everyone is sitting and waiting for the ultimate change to take place. This is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs and needs to be addressed at the earliest.
The irony is that the three civic agencies responsible for the upkeep and management of Rawalpindi are headed by one person in his capacity as chairman of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and the Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA).
Despite this, there is a problem of coordination among the three agencies with the result that there is either duplication of work in some areas or absolute inaction in others.
The Local Government Ordinance of 2001 needs to be fine-tuned so that there is a clear demarcation of responsibilities among various civic bodies dealing with municipal functions in Rawalpindi and elsewhere.
The status of development authorities under the new local government system is not clear and this adds to the confusion. The most important issue, however, is a lack of stakeholder participation at all levels.
Special emphasis needs to be placed on increasing community awareness and public participation in running the municipal administration of a city, otherwise all attempts to reform the system will prove largely futile.