MAYBE it’s the curse of an incurably suspicious mind. There was a time decades ago, that age of wide-eyed wonder, when colour and light burning bright were the dominant stimuli. But things change. One gets new experiences.

The known proclivities of the people running the city government, the self-styled Haq Parast from the MQM, don’t help either. Their track record makes you look askance at everything, even breakfast. Why else would a surplus city budget send all the wrong signals, as if something dodgy were afoot?

Surplus budgets are all well and good but also worth an eyeful would be a detailed and — here’s the nub — independently audited account of the previous year’s expenditure. Without third-party verification of how they are spent, surpluses based on projected revenue (not cash in hand) are an invitation to secret slush funds that could travel the globe at a moment’s notice.

Conversely, revenue targets could easily be missed, at least on the books.

But of course none of that would happen in Karachi for the people in charge here are all, all honourable men, not history-sheeters.

Still, there’s no getting round the trust deficit. The city government may say something that sounds perfectly valid but doubts creep in nevertheless.

We are told that some 550 “hazardous” trees have been cut or pruned in the wake of the freak storm on June 23, and more will be chopped down shortly. Nothing wrong with that, surely. The few trees left in the city took a battering on that fateful Saturday and many in the aftermath clearly posed a threat to life and property.

The danger though is that safety concerns could be used as a pretext to slaughter hundreds of healthy trees that present no threat whatsoever. All that senseless violence, if it occurs, for mere pocket money from two-bit timber dealers.

This too may not happen. But the city government’s contempt for the environment, and the credo that nothing can stand in the way of ‘development’, readily lends itself to second thoughts. Remember, we shall shortly be burdened with an elevated expressway, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, which will serve no practical purpose whatsoever and, for good measure, kill the city as we know it.The expressway contract was awarded to a choice Malaysian firm without calling for bids. Why bother, it was pre-planned anyhow. The environmental impact assessment was a joke, a mere rubberstamp.

The CDGK is not alone in this carnage. The trend was set by the money-grubbing ‘Short-cut’ lobby in Islamabad and others followed suit, drooling all the way to the bank. One man, and one man alone, stood in the way but he soon found himself in court, nihaar moonh.

Consider also the Karachi Building Control Authority’s drive against dangerous buildings. True, some of these relicts could collapse any day, killing hundreds. The problem though is that the KBCA is as big a syndicate as the builders’ mafia and taking its word on face value is never advisable.

Big, big money can be made by demolishing a perfectly sound old building in a prime area and raising a shopping plaza in its stead. Everyone but the city and ordinary citizens will benefit. The old owners will be delighted, the builders ecstatic and hefty cuts will be passed around like so much sponge cake. With fake cherries on top. And a slab of icing a digit thick.

Of course a giant slice of the proceeds will be reserved for those with the street power to get tenants evicted. Terror has a price.

Enough said, for now.

imalik@dawn.com