THE PPP’s stance that devolution of powers is not Karachi’s number one problem is rather problematic. In fact, ask any resident of this city and they will tell you that along with law and order, a workable local government system for this metropolis — addressing sanitation, water, sewerage issues, etc — is their top civic concern. The PPP’s logic is, therefore, strange. While meeting members of the election commission in Islamabad on Monday, Sindh government officials said local bodies elections in the province could not be held until controversies over the 2017 census are settled. Moreover while speaking in Karachi on Tuesday, PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that he believed “there are so many other problems for the people of Karachi and devolution of powers is not the number one priority... .” Interestingly, speaking on the same day at a separate function, the city’s administrator Murtaza Wahab, a PPP man, said garbage disposal and better water supply were his top priorities. Mr Wahab must know that it was his party’s government that has ensured both these key sectors remain with the provincial government, and not with the KMC; thus perhaps he should raise these issues internally with the PPP bosses. Moreover, it is quite surprising that a party that champions the 18th Amendment and protection of provincial autonomy — and rightly so — has the gall to say that empowering the third tier of the nation’s biggest city is not a priority.

Such attitudes prove right the widely held notion that most political parties across Pakistan — out of narrow self-interest — do not seek an empowered third tier for fear of losing influence and patronage networks. Interestingly, while LB polls in Sindh’s cantonments are due next month, local elections for its cities and towns seem to be in limbo indefinitely. The PPP’s take that local polls can only be held after the census controversy is settled is akin to kicking the elections’ issue into the long grass. While there are legitimate questions about the last head count, waiting for a positive settlement to this controversy to hold polls seems like a delaying tactic. The fact is that an elected, empowered local government, with the councillors and even the mayor having to answer at the mohalla level, is what the metropolis direly needs, not unelected bureaucrats and partymen who do not have to answer to the voters, running the show. The quicker this system is put in place, the better.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2021