Daily Times

Good or bad, I have a news-alert. Or rather a prediction for all of us. God forbid but it seems to me that soon Islamabad will be as poorly administered as any other city in Pakistan. Those who used to say ‘Islamabad is 13km away from Pakistan’ should be happy. Perhaps, soon the federal capital will become an ‘integral’ part of the country. It would look as miserable as any less-developed or poorly managed city. The emergence of the local government for Islamabad has successfully started creating issues being faced by these cities.

Majority of Islamabad’s residents, for years, have raised their voices and voted against the establishment of the Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI). Seeing the results of democratic local governance in other cities, these concerned residents believed that the inception of the MCI would turn one of the most beautiful cities of the world into a dump site. Others believed that it was important for the federal capital to have a democratic local government. They thought the city could be run better by elected representatives, instead of bureaucrats.

Finally, the later view triumphed. The Senate approved the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Local Government Act 2015 in the month of July that year. Local government elections were held in February 2016. PML-N and PTI turned out to be the major parties. Somehow, the MCI was established and Sheikh Anser Aziz, a close aide of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was elected as the first mayor of Islamabad with very high hopes.

Hopes are still placed very high — perhaps, out of reach for the elected representatives. The MCI has been holding its regular monthly sessions at a very prestigious venue — the Pak-China Friendship Centre. The daily rent of the venue is not less than Rs 500,000. The agenda developed and executed in these sessions at the cost of public exchequer is mostly done in the mayor’s absence. The residents are tired of waiting for any positive result coming out of these sessions of the MCI that is responsible for 50 union councils and 28 directorates devolved from the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

For the last nine months, the Islamabad mayor is also serving as the CDA chairman. There is no precedent at all for a mayor having a dual charge as chairman of the city’s development authority. This decision has created an odd example whereby absolute authority to decide the fate of the city and its people has been vested in one person. The MCI mayor has yet to formulate the MCI rules of business even after one-and-a-half year of his election. This is unfortunate for the city and an affront to the mandate of the people.

Having no business rules finalised and approved yet means that MCI sessions conducted so far were a mere joke and an insult to the residents of the federal capital. It was sheer wastage of public resources and time of elected representatives. So far, MCI has not delivered any output. All the devolved directorates are malfunctioning — in a state even poorer than before. Garbage collection has gone down. The car-parking areas in the Blue Area — the only posh commercial area of Islamabad — have been left unattended. The situation of parks is similar. Nothing needs to be said about sanitation that keeps out flowing from the pipes.  The environment-unfriendly interventions in Margalla Hills have increased. Green cover continues to decline. Despite tall claims, no visible tree-plantation effort has occurred. Sports grounds being run smoothly under private-public partnership are being ‘occupied and successfully conquered’ by the MCI staff and are said to be allotted to MCI’s blued-eyed ones.

The reason behind the change in land-use pattern in the ICT may be directly linked to the profession of those heading the MCI and the majority of its 670 councillors who are said to be involved in real estate and commercial sectors

The concept of ‘clean and green Islamabad’ is dying. The CDA has finally given green signal to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for the construction of a cricket stadium in the Shakarparian National Park Area — a decision pending for last many years. So, what is on the rise is a change in land-use pattern. The opposition councillors blame the mayor for changing the purpose of land-use from social objectives to commercial ones, and allotting land in prime locations to his key aides and close friends.

The reason behind the rise in the change of land-use in the ICT may be directly linked to the profession of those heading the MCI and the majority of its 670 councillors who are said to involved in real estate and commercial sectors. Most of them belong to PML-N, and more interested in grabbing the ICT land than serving their respective communities. On the other hand, the majority of urban councillors belong to PTI — the strong opposition in the House. They are mostly the educated ones with a different social and professional profile. Even if they have won from rural Islamabad, the PTI councillors have better a development vision. The opposition has successfully defied many controversial decisions that were set to be approved by the MCI.

After the brutal killing of Benazir Bhutto, we heard a slogan: ‘democracy is the best revenge’. All those who were suffering from the ‘ailments of democracy’ in their respective cities ‘planned a revenge’ against the people of Islamabad — the first and only planned and well-managed city of Pakistan. It is expected that Islamabad would soon be as ‘democratised’ as any other city in Pakistan with sheer deficiency of civic amenities, lack of governance, and widespread land grabbing. All thanks to reforms in local governance that have replaced well-disciplined and trained bureaucrats with ‘property agents’ and traders. Nothing could be as revengeful as giving the MCI to the federal capital.

The writer is an Islamabad-based policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed