Politicians, journalists discuss Karachi's dismal civic issues

KARACHI: The second session of the 7th Annual International Karachi Conference, held at Institute of Business Administration, kicked off with the auditorium erupting in laughter after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi’s name was mispronounced by the host and corrected on the spot by the provincial opposition leader himself.

Former member of the Sindh Assembly, Dr Farooq Sattar, journalist Mahim Maher, and K-Electric (KE) Chief Distribution Officer Amer Zia presented papers while panellists — including Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh, PTI's Naqvi, and session chair Masood Raza engaged the speakers on their papers titled "The Future of Karachi’s Development."

Sattar addressed the audience first while the rest of the speakers and panellists took their place at the stage. Perplexed as to where to start on the story of Karachi, he said: “I am a part of the story and part of the collective failure as well.”

While pointing out the metropolis' problems, he noted that it would take the mayor, whoever it may be, at least 30 years to change the game as the days when Panadol was the cure for a headache were gone. He talked more about solutions rather than wasting time on the problems, suggesting Karachiites were well aware of them.

The city, he said, “needs unity and diversity” and that the Article 140A (local government system) of the Constitution would be the magical solution of all the problems that Karachi faced.

On Karachi's garbage woes — especially how the city made headlines in The New York Times after ages but only due to the waste management issues in the city — Sattar seemed visibly embarrassed.

The politician was equally critical of his party's mayor, Waseem Akhtar, saying the latter "has been negligent of his responsibilities". Fuming, he added that if the mayor had prioritised matters in a professional manner, he could have resolved the existing issues in Pakistan's southern port city.

Sattar, while regarding Karachi as “the engine of growth and the hub of economy", said it did not receive sufficient funds from the centre and province.

"Let bygones be bygones" was Sattar's ending note.

It was then that KE's Amer Zia as well as Waqas, another company representative, took dice. In a brief presentation, the former shed light on the problems caused by inefficient planning by the city’s administration.

Speaking of Baldia Town, Zia said the roads in the city were at least “40 feet” wide but were barely of any good use to daily commuters. "On 20 feet, we have trash and on the other, we have dairy farms, the leftover road has a lot of pot holes in it, which makes it almost impossible for a man to travel," he quipped.

He then talked about Ibrahim Hyderi, which, he said, was “at a 10-minute drive from Defence” and had drowned in water after the recent rains. “We had to cut off the area's supply because if we didn’t, many unfortunate incidents would have taken place as the electric wires were drowned in six feet of water.”

Waqas, the other KE representative, then talked about the ongoing energy crisis and how the city's sole power supplier was working to resolve the issue at hand.

According to Waqas, the law enforcement agencies were not playing their role in an efficient manner as KE, he claimed, was exhausted of 'kundas' — or illegal connections — in the city, estimating that there were around 500,000 'kundas' in Karachi.

Then came Mahim Maher, who discussed her story on the K-4 project — the canal system that had started in 2002. She claimed that through her investigative report, it was forwarded through single contract to the Frontier Works Organization (FWO).

Maher highlighted a bunch of "blunders" as well and how the Chief Minister House was taking measures to go about with this project ever since Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) Murad Ali Shah took office.

“I work on such stories because these men in power make horrible decisions and keep them in CM house and all I want is to make the public aware so that their rights aren't manipulated,” the journalist said.

In the consequent panel discussion, Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh spoke first, disagreeing openly with Maher's investigative report and declaring that the contract was not offered through a single claim.

Shaikh said her information was incomplete, causing Naqvi to shake his head with a smirk on his face. To which, Maher replied: “All the claims in the report are documented, you can see it yourself.”