HYDERABAD: The Cantonment Board Hyderabad (CBH) on Sunday agreed to start paying “disputed” arrears of Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) “under protest” when the Supreme Court-appointed judicial commission on water quality and sanitation in Sindh directed it to do so pending a settlement of the whole issue between the two agencies.

CBH chief executive officer (CEO) Sardar Atif stated before retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim, who chaired a meeting in the Judges’ Lodge as the head of the one-man commission, that the CBH would start paying the disputed arrears within a month under protest in addition to the current Wasa bills with enhanced rates.

“But there are issues as far as the liabilities are concerned,” the CEO held. He said the amount of the liabilities claimed by Wasa was so huge that the board couldn’t pay it in one go. He said the CBH was a self revenue generating agency and it lacked the capacity to clear such a huge amount at once.

Sardar Atif informed the commission that the two agencies were trying to reconcile the liabilities, adding that there were discrepancies in billings.

Justice Muslim said: “You should avoid adopting an approach which makes Wasa collapse. Wasa is a self revenue generating body too where employees don’t get salaries for months and often [the] commission intervened to get lower grade employees’ salaries released from [Sindh] government. Wasa even doesn’t get fixed rate towards utilities from government departments.” He wondered how could an employee survive if he did not get his salary due to such reasoning.

The judge observed that Wasa was unable to make recoveries from consumers while it was also true that provincial and federal departments were reluctant to clear their dues. From where Wasa could generate revenues amid such state of affairs? he asked.

Justice Muslim told the CEO to start paying the arrears to Wasa under protest till the whole issue was settled because when the CBH was already agreeing to some amount of arrears, the same at least should not be subjected to reconciliation of bills.

He said the process of reconciliation should not be lengthened unnecessarily as well and payment of agreed upon amount should not been delayed.

When the CEO complained that Wasa was restraining the CBH from making recoveries from seven to eight properties, the judge said “this [issue] can be resolved”.

Wasa claims that the CBH is its major bulk consumer and dues against it stand at around Rs210.498 million vis-a-vis just one single unsanctioned connection used in Defence Phase-II Housing Society. An amount of Rs50 million against regular bulk connection is also to be cleared.

Hyderabad Commissioner Abbas Baloch drew the judicial commission’s attention to the rent of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) properties and said that corporation could revise the rate of rent to improve its financial position.

Mayor Syed Tayyab Hussain said that the HMC council was already working on it in consultation with traders and other stakeholders.

The commission upbraid public health engineering (PHE) department officers/officials for not making functional three water supply schemes of Akro (near Petaro in Jamshoro district), Unnarpur and Khanot. He asked them that why a reverse osmosis (RO) plant in Khaddo village near Kotri was not installed as yet.

Justice Muslim also scolded chief municipal officer (CMO) of Qasimabad for not using garbage-lifting vehicles when the officer informed him that the municipality was drawing Rs1.8 million under the head of fuel for these vehicles. He ordered the CMO to employ the vehicles and arrange for garbage-lifting.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2018