KARACHI: The report of the judicial commission set up to inquire into shortage of potable water and poor sanitation conditions in the Sindh province is a charge-sheet against the working of various departments of the Sindh government.
This was observed in a 64-page long verdict issued by the Supreme Court on Friday in a case pertaining to shortage of safe drinking water and poor sanitation conditions across the province.
The judgment said that the judicial body would ensure compliance of the directions of this order and shall take steps to see that the Task Force constituted by the government to implement the recommendations of the commission did its job.
“The commission shall be at liberty to pass orders acting as a high court judge whenever it is necessary in the public interest for achieving the object for which it has been constituted,” it ruled.
“All provincial as well as federal government departments, and statutory bodies, agencies, companies under their administrative control shall be bound by the directions and orders issued by the commission. All the concerned should periodically report to the commission to ensure that the matters which have been highlighted in the report and noticed by us are redressed.”
The judgment said that any order of the commission cannot be appealed before any forum except before the apex court and would be binding on all the provincial and federal government departments and agencies under their control unless reversed or reviewed by the court.
“Given the atmosphere of frequent transfers in the Sindh government in defiance of the services rules and the judgment of this court, we are constrained to restrain the government from removing either the Sindh chief secretary or any member of the task force without prior approval of this court unless a member’s three year-tenure-period is complete, ruled three-judge bench in its judgment, noting that any other intervention by the government would hamper the functioning of the task force to the disadvantage of the objectives for which it is constituted.
The judges noted in the judgment that this court has serious reservations with regard to the continuation of Sindh Solid Waste Management Board programs, which have failed to deliver in any part of Sindh as the government continues to pay to the local government for the same work.
“Such amount needed to be utilized to strengthen the departments which are meant for the job. Running parallel organizations to perform the same functions leaded to bad governance and lack of responsibility and accountability, which is sadly order of the day as clearly reflected in the commission’s findings.”
The verdict noted that without any infrastructure provided for disposal of solid waste from transit point to landfill sites would multiply the problems.
It further observed that Sindh Environmental Protection Agency’s director general Naeem Ahmed Mughul had never put in hard work, nor did he make any serious efforts to make well equipped laboratory functional in Karachi but he failed to offer plausible explanation before the court.
When inquired, the court was informed that he was not even eligible to hold the office as he was not a cadre officer. The court, therefore, had directed the government to replace him with a cadre officer of good administrative skills to make functional not only laboratories of SEPA but discharge other responsibilities.
The court had directed the Task Force to ensure that all the filter and treatment plants in Sindh shall be made functional. It would also make functional all the incinerators installed in the government hospitals
It had also directed the chairman of Karachi Port Trust, KWSB managing director and Sindh Solid Waste Management Boards director to personally examine all water channels/drains that bring and discharge effluents and solid waste into the harbour and the Karachi coast and devise practical, inexpensive and immediate measures from their existing budgets to prevent the pollution of the harbour and the Karachi coast.