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Clever-by-half governance

Responding to my article published in these columns on July 25, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) addressed a detailed Letter to the Editor the gist of which was to describe the obligations of provincial and district administrations in managing the aftermath of natural calamities in co-ordination with NDMA, but didn’t accept the failures in this ‘co-ordinated’ effort during the 2011 flood tragedy.

Now that Karachi – Pakistan’s mega city – faces the second spell of monsoon rains, how this combined machinery reacts to minimise the life-disrupting consequences of rain, will be exposed. What we witnessed beginning Friday August 5 – first day of the second spell of monsoon rain – was that the district authorities had done precious little in terms of preparatory work.

The provincial government’s sense of responsibility in ensuring that K-Electric was goaded into revamping its outdated power distribution network, was manifested by the same disappointing performance that has gone on for years, ie, “tripping of hundreds of feeders”; for hours, it stopped power supply to virtually the whole of Karachi thereby afflicting the single most testing misery on its citizens.

In European states, rain is a daily affair. Yet, power supply isn’t disrupted. Isn’t this enough to ask K-Electric why its feeders trip with the first drop of rain. Did the Sindh government investigate whether K-Electric’s feeders are substandard, fitted without requisite rain water preventive covers, or are they beyond repair and if so, how much of K-Electric’s Rs 12 billion profit in 2015 was spent on replacing the feeders?

That’s not all; each time Nepra announces a reduction in power tariffs, it exempts K-Electric from offering those concessions, although K-Electric continues to buy power from Wapda on concessional tariffs. Given this setting, K-Electric should be the most profitable Disco. Then how come it hasn’t been forced to revamp its distribution system to eliminate power breakdowns?

Flooding of the Karachi’s main thoroughfares (because rain water drains alongside were not cleared on a timely basis), and submerging of scores of vehicles in water caused massive traffic jams forcing thousands returning home from their workplaces to remain stranded on these thoroughfares for hours, and after returning home, they spent a sleepless night due to long hours of power breakdowns.

Just a few hours rain inundated the city’s key arteries including I.I. Chundrigar Road and parts of M. A. Jinnah Road. In the low-lying areas streets became inaccessible because they were submerged under a mix of rain water and water oozing out of overflowing sewerage lines that remain blocked all the time, courtesy the apathy of Karachi Municipal Corp.

Because of the clogged sewerage system and greatly reduced width of the rain water drains due to construction of houses thereon, and the city administration’s incapacity for draining out the water accumulating in land depressions everywhere, breeding of dengue fever-spreading mosquitoes poses a serious threat that the healthcare services might fail to confront, as witnessed before.

Keeping functional the city that contributes a two-thirds of the national tax revenue remains the lowest priority, not just of the federal but also of the Sindh government although, to go on thriving on the tax revenue in their highly questionable styles, Karachi must remain functional to generate that tax revenue; this visible blindness of both proves their being clever-by-half.

Karachi suffers from gross inadequacy of the civic services – water supply, power and gas supply, sewerage, sanitation, garbage lifting, healthcare, basic education and security – which reflects clever-by-half governance; to go on enjoying the benefits of being in power, at least the revenue generating hubs must remain functional and peaceful via provision of basic civic services.

Inadequate, in fact virtual non-availability of basic civic services is steadily eroding Karachi’s ranking in the global mega cities thereby making it unattractive for investment. Proof: winding-up and shifting abroad of many enterprises. The government doesn’t realise that if this trend is not reversed, Karachi won’t remain the provider of two-thirds of the national tax revenue.

While the city administration has ‘established’ beyond doubt its inability to lift thousands of tons of garbage from Karachi’s localities, voluntary efforts to lift it are thwarted by the provincial government by arresting those who opt to partake in this effort. As for converting garbage into fuel for generating more electricity, it is not a priority. Three cheers for governance!

Karachi’s sewerage and drainage systems are repaired every year on paper, which keeps alive the demand for repairing them and justifies allocation (and subsequent pocketing) of more funds for this purpose. Garbage lifting is a daily activity in most countries, but in Pakistan it can become a “project”.

When provision of basic civic services even in mega cities is pathetic, it is not hard to visualise the state of other cities, small towns, and villages. After the recent spell of rain, a three-fourths of Hyderabad was flooded, and condition of the nearby small towns was worse. Media reports suggest that cities, small towns and villages in the other provinces are in equally miserable state.

Last week, reports about flooding of outlying localities of Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Chiniot, and Peshawar exposed the vision and commitment of the district and provincial administrations to prepare for and manage the after-effects of flood tragedies caused by melting of icebergs and heavy rains although such disasters pushed below the poverty line even those who were above that line.

There were instances wherein poor line-laying work by linemen of the Discos left live power lines un-buried in the pavements along main thoroughfares that led to electrocution of the pedestrian. That wasn’t all; by leaving open many gutters that got covered-up by rain water, municipalities created the risk of pedestrians falling in them and damaging their limbs.

All this makes it imperative that sewerage and rainwater drainage networks are overhauled completely, this time not on paper but in reality. Secondly, daily lifting of garbage is ensured by providing this service the requisite equipment and manpower, and devising and imposing a supervisory system that unfailingly ensures provision of this service on a daily basis. But the big unanswered question is “will this be done?”

The present pathetic country-wide scenario makes you question the role of the state, quality of legislation, and the output of state revenue spent on civic services. Despite these glaring legislative and governance failures, the in-power politicians claim ‘supremacy’ of the parliament. Given their track record, parliamentarians can no longer claim the “supremacy” of parliament; supremacy must be ‘justified’ by performing credibly to prove that democracy as the best system of governance.

A B Shahid, "Clever-by-half governance," Business Recorder. 2016-08-09.
Keywords: Social sciences , Political obligation , Monsoon Experiment , Concession bargaining , Civic improvement , Tax revenue estimating , Pakistan , NDMA