KOHAT: The business community here has blamed political rivalry between tehsil and district nazims for traffic mess and bad sanitation conditions in Kohat city.

Tajir Action Committee chairman Haji Abid said the traffic mess and mismanagement in garbage collection had been created again following lifting of ‘red zone’ ban by the district nazim after which vans and pickups were allowed to enter the main city areas. He said that the resulting traffic jams had been badly affecting the schoolgoers besides pedestrians in the bazaars.

He told this correspondent that complete administrative confusion had been caused by the overlapping systems after the formation of local bodies which had virtually failed to provide any relief to the people.

The plans made to mitigate problems of the people were being overruled due to lack of coordination where district nazim was from JUI-F and tehsil nazim from PML-N. He said that due to political rivalry between the nazims they had been playing blame game and also maligning the provincial PTI-led government for every problem despite receiving huge funds.

Traders say nazims responsible for the city’s problems

He said that the city presented a look of garbage dump where people could not stand for a few minutes due to stinking smell. He asked the tehsil municipal administration (TMA) to explain where it was spending its huge funds. A TMA officer said on condition of anonymity that political appointments had been made in the hierarchy of sanitation department which had deteriorated the situation during the past four months. He said that the district government and MPs from the district were busy in letting down each other, while ignoring resolution of people’s problems.

Meanwhile, Dr Zainul Abideen appealed to district nazim Maulana Niaz Mohammad to reinstate the ‘red zone’ ban so that the vans were parked at specified stops instead of entering the main city. He said that after lifting of the ban it took motorists and school duty vans over one hour to cover the distance which earlier would consume only 15 minutes to cross the city limits.

Thousand of vans enter and leave the city after lifting of the ban. The people have also demanded shifting of the illegal van stands near chicken market to outside the city centre.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2016