Daily Times

The tussle, triggered by the statement of the chairman of the so called strategic committee, constituted by Prime Minister Imran Khan filling it with MQM stalwarts, regarding the invocation of the constitutional clause 149(4) in Karachi enraging the provincial administration and the citizens of Sindh suspecting it to be the first step towards the separation of Karachi from Sindh, an old dream of MQM, has continued raising tempers.

The committee was simply mandated to make short and long term suggestions to address the problems of the Metropolis which were sidetracked in the midst of a raging controversy over powers and allocation of funds between the provincial government and the Mayor of Karachi Municipal Corporation.

The controversy is getting louder and louder because of the accusatory statements of the Federal and provincial Ministers against each other and the highly irresponsible role being played by the PTI-MQM opposition in Sindh at a time when the nation needs to be galvanized to face the internal and external challenges. The PTI opposition, instead of assuaging the suspicions of the provincial government and the citizens of Sindh, has taken it as a duty to fuel the controversy by repeatedly referring to the invocation of the clause 149(4) threatening to circumscribe the writ of the provincial administration. This is nothing short of political bankruptcy.

The subject of local government has totally gone into the provincial domain after the 18th Amendment. The federal authority has no modus operandi to interfere in local government system of any province adopted through necessary legislation. The spirit of the 18th Amendment was to devolve powers from centre to provinces and, as a corollary, from provinces to the local governments. The current local government system in Sindh, good or bad, was adopted after necessary legislation by the Legislative Assembly.

It is debatable how far this legislation entertains the spirit of devolution of power as inherent in the 18thconstitutional amendment and whether or not it fits to Occam’s test in this context. However, the PPP heads of local governments in most of the Municipal Committees and District Councils in Sindh have not come up with any grievance against the system. The MQM Mayors of Hyderabad and Karachi and some chairmen of Municipal committees and District Councils of Karachi Division, in particularly the Mayor of Karachi Municipal Corporation, have been loudly voicing protests over the lack of powers and funds to meet the mounting pressures for amenity services and development works.

Prime Minister Imran Khan would be well advised to reconstitute the strategic committee in consultation with the provincial administration taking well reputed members from the federal and provincial governments and well placed citizens of the city to oversee the implementation of his federal package for the upkeep of the Metropolis

The provincial government has apparently taken lucrative departments of Karachi Development Authority, Sindh Building Controlling Authority, the construction and maintenance of main roads including the building of over flies and under passes, solid waste management out of the purview of Karachi Municipal Corporation leaving the Mayor with what could be termed as day-to-day work of sanitation including the sewerage, garbage removing and management of the population of stray dogs in the city. This is an anomalous situation no citizen of a civilized society could conceive of where the third tier of democratic governance is invested with all the affairs of the respective town, city or metropolis. The local government system in KPK in our own country is an example to be emulated.

The federal government has a dilemma in this whole affair. The MQM’s stalwarts in the federal cabinet are adding to the difficulties of Prime Minister Imran Khan by pulling and pushing him to place the federally funded package for Karachi at their sole discretion. Would it be legally and constitutionally feasible for the federal government to bypass the provincial government and authorize a federally appointed committee to oversee the implementation of Karachi package? The committee would obviously spend these federal funds through the local governments of the city including the KMC and other Municipal Committees and District Councils manned by MQM and PPP. It is doubtful that these local governments would have the ability and capacity to utilize the funds properly. This exceptional experiment will sorrowfully end in a futile exercise.

The provincial administration of PPP would be averse to allowing such a committee to encroach upon its powers in the city particularly when it remains excluded from the process of determining the size of Karachi package and the modus operandi of its implementation. The lucrative incentives of the package apart, the questions of making political mileage out of the huge developmental works that the package would kick off heavily weigh on the minds of the so called stakeholders -PPP, MQM and PTI.

The PPP and MQM have been partners in power. Their notoriety for corruption and plunder of the resources of the city is an open secret. One was involved in corruption and loot sale of lands, and the other in corrupt practices that included body bags, illegal occupation of amenity plots, China-cutting and extortion and money laundering. Unfortunately, both have been repeatedly returned to Assemblies by their constituencies. Free from any public accountability, their performance has always been dismally disappointing.

With all this in view, we come round to the same conclusion that Prime Minister Imran Khan would be well advised to reconstitute the strategic committee in consultation with the provincial administration taking well reputed members from the federal and provincial governments and well placed citizens of the city to oversee the implementation of his federal package for the upkeep of the Metropolis. An unambiguous assurance from him for the territorial integrity of Sindh would assuage the enraged Sindhi populace which the PPP stalwarts have been exploiting to prop up their declining political fortunes or save their necks from the Damocles’ sword of accountability.

The MQM has also been using the situation as a political bonanza to reassert its position as the sole representative of the Mohajir community fuelling their parochial sentiments. If left to the irresponsible joint PTI-MQM leadership in the Sindh Assembly, the differences between the federal and provincial government would deepen to the point of no return which would be politically and administratively disastrous for the province.

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books