HYDERABAD: A sorry state of affairs prevails in the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) owing to the provincial government’s lack of interest to govern the prime body meant for the development of the second largest city of Sindh, it emerged on Tuesday.

Being the custodian of the city’s civic infrastructure, the HDA has to manage works executed in the sewerage, water supply and drainage sectors. According to Sindh Finance Secretary Sohail Rajput,although between Rs12billion and Rs15bn had been spent in these three sectors in Hyderabad since 2005 yet the city is in a shambles. However, even after such a huge spending in the past several years complaints coupled with violent protests about unavailability of water or overflowing sewers by residents have refused to die down.

The authority is hit by a leadership crisis since the Sindh government is still running it on an ad hoc basis.

It is evident from the posting of the authority’s Chief Town Planner Mohammad Iqbal Memon as the acting director general, as he is heading the HDA as a ‘stopgap’ since February. The provincial government is yet to find a regular cadre officer even after taking a principled stance in the Sindh High Court (SHC) that the HDA is to be led by a cadre post official and not a non-cadre one.

In the wake of directives of the Supreme Court against OPS (own pay scale), several officers have been removed but not all. But some important posts are still being held or looked after by them. Posts of the managing director of the water and sanitation agency (WASA), project director (PD) of the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDP), land management section, secretary of the HDA etc, are a few examples to quote. The Wasa MD has relinquished charge but he was asked to unofficially run it as the HDA did not have any official to be posted there. Wasa being an attached department of the HDA is unable to even pay its employees’ salaries.

In the HDP, the incumbent project director, Sajjad Memon, is not even an engineer by profession despite the fact that development works are of prime engineering nature. He is an official of BS-18 but holding the post of BS-20.

On the other hand close to Rs16bn is spent in the three major sectors in the recent pastmostly under HDP. After works’ completion the projects are eventually handed over to the HDA for permanent operational and management control. But their efficient management remains a far cry. Transparent use of funds, including in the HDA’s largest housing scheme Gulistan-i-Sarmast spread over thousands of acres, is something yet to be ensured.

“Every single matter will expose you to questionable handling of funds,” says a senior official.

HDA is not even able to protect its property/land from the land mafia that exists in the shape of its own officials and even lower cadre staff, considered close to authority’s officers. “Officers just look other way when it comes to secure vital interests of the HDA”, he adds.

Sources said that during the last few years the HDA witnessed a tug of war between officials, including Qurban Khoso, Fazil Shah, Ghulam Mohammad Kaimkhani and the sitting DG, who wanted to grab the ‘lucrative’ posts. When the outgoing DG Ghulam Mohammad Kaimkhani field a petition in the SHC against his transfer the then Advocate General, Sindh Khalid Jawed Khan took the position in Nov 2013 that he would have to be repatriated to his original position of the chief financial officer and a cadre post official would be appointed as the DG.

Since then the Sindh government’s Services, General Administration and Coordination Department (SGA&CD) has failed to find some cadre official to post as the HDA director general.

In the meantime HDA’s chief town planner Mohammad Iqbal Memon has been given the additional charge on Feb 28 as a stopgap till the posting of a cadre officer (a bureaucrat). Interestingly, Memon was intervener in the Kaimkhani’s petition as the two at odds with each other.

“We didn’t assign additional duties to the sitting DG. He is an official of BS-20 so his notification is issued by SGA&CD and not by the local government department,” says a senior LG official requesting anonymity.

Memon has been absent from the HDA since Feb 2013 after he was asked to report to the LG department. He remained absent from his actual post for a year. The HDA secretariat repeatedly wrote for his suspension and disciplinary action against him.

However, a Jan 3, 2014 notification issued by the LG department and addressed to the HDA DG mentioned that all letters seeking action against him had been cancelled and withdrawn by the chief secretary.

Memon was advised to be ‘careful and punctual in future’.

The sources said that as the director general, Mr Kaimkhani was not regular in attending office as he mostly stayed in Karachi. The sitting DG’s case was no different. He is not regular in office either. While he was supposed to work as a stopgap he posted some junior officials on senior positions only to withdraw their orders after recent apex court’s directives, requiring Sindh government to remove all OPS officers, the sources added.

There used to be a governing body of the HDA as policy-making forum. No one in the HDA exactly knows when did it last meet after its reconstitution following the revival of the Hyderabad Development Autho­rity Act, 1976. The governing body could intervene when it comes to important decisions or protection of interests of the HDA provided it starts working.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014