KARACHI: “There is a battle for control, not governance in Karachi,” said economist Dr Kaiser Bengali during a workshop on awareness for citizens on civic issues organised by Shehri — Citizens for a Better Environment at a hotel here on Tuesday.

“Karachi used to be a small city with a three to four lakh population. There was a transport system in place, including trams, to help citizens commute. But as the city grew, arrangements started taking place on an ad hoc basis,” he said.

“The government structures didn’t involve improving of services. We still don’t know who or which department here is really responsible for housing, building control, water supply, waste disposal, solid waste management, roads, street lights, public transport, electricity, gas, urban planning,” Dr Bengali said.

“Meanwhile, nice, decent and previously well-planned areas are turning into slums due to so many encroachments. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board cannot supply water to the people. Tankers do that. Since there is no concept of solid waste disposal, we burn our solid waste. The state doesn’t take responsibility for public transport, the transporters do that,” he pointed out.

“As for problems such as ethnic [conflict], gang wars and the Taliban, we cannot look at police and Rangers to fix things except perhaps in the last one mentioned,” he said. “Of course, the Taliban have to be forced out. But the youth in Lyari, being robbed of jobs by the KMC and KPT, have turned them to crime making this more of an economic problem.

Low turnout of voters, particularly in local government polls, lamented

“And ethnic [conflict] is the result of migration. The Urdu-speaking population is declining as there are no more migrants from India. In its place there is a growing Pakhtun and Punjabi population. Seraiki, too,” he said. “The political impact of this is that the Sindh Assembly now has Pakhtun MPAs. Perhaps Seraikis too will want their share on the table in the next 10 years. Meanwhile, the MQM feel like they are sitting on a melting iceberg,” he added.

‘Bursting at the seams’

During his presentation about understanding the land issues in Karachi, Dr Noman Ahmed, professor and chairman of the Department of Architecture at NED University, said that with a population of 23 million the city was bursting at the seams. “But,” he said, “50.5 per cent of residents in Karachi live below the poverty line with scenes of congestion very common. And projects and interventions are not really doing much good. One reason for that is lack of resources as the collection of income tax doesn’t match the working population and thus improvements in the city are few.”

Urban planner Farhan Anwer’s presentation on ‘Karachi — a study in fragmented urbanisation’ looked at synchronised governances and sharing of powers which run cities well.

“But in Pakistan we have the various governances overlapping one another. Instead of sharing power and functions, they are clashing. There are imbalances both at the vertical and horizontal levels. And during the struggle or tug of war, it is the common man that is suffering,” he said. “As turf battles carry on, there is a parallel economy flourishing. There are gated communities coming up and public spaces such as parks are becoming privatised with malls taking over,” he added.

Former federal information minister Javed Jabbar, the chief guest at the event, said that hearing about Karachi’s structural and demographic issues through the three presentations made one feel like he was sinking deeper and deeper, not knowing where to begin in order to fix the issues. “We complain about the government and politicians but when it comes to action, what are the voter turnouts?” he said. “And the turnout of voters is even worse in local government polls, especially in the highly educated areas,” he added.

He said that actually there was a need for turning the system on its head. “Local governments are powerful. They are the key. Local government elections should be held first, followed by provincial and national elections,” he said, adding that after the 18th Amendment, merely devolving power to the provincial governments was not going to help democracy.

He also suggested a dialogue at the micro level where the DHA and Cantonment Board Clifton, Port Qasim Authority, Karachi Port Trust and other entities such as religious and political parties could sit together to seek solutions to their problems.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2017

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