Local Government System – Incompetence vs Competence

Karachi was settled as a small fishing village and eventually became Pakistan’s largest city, with a current population of over 20 million residents. In 1843, when the British Army conquered the province of Sindh, the colonizers chose Karachi as a coastal base. It was only when the cholera epidemic ravaged the settlement in 1846, a Conservancy Board was organized and upgraded into a Municipal Committee in 1853.

In 1933, the City of Karachi Municipal Act was passed, and was given the status of a municipal corporation. Karachi was made the capital of the new state in Pakistan in 1947 and in 1976, long after the federal capital moved to Islamabad, Karachi Municipal Corporation or KMC was upgraded to a metropolitan corporation. A separate Zonal Committee was setup in Karachi in 1987 when Dr.Farooq Sattar of MQM became the mayor of the city but in 1994 this committee was again merged with the KMC apart from an expansion under Greater Karachi Plan in 1996.

The most far-reaching changes in the planning and governance of Karachi occurred on August, 14, 2001 under the Devolution Plan creating the City District Government of Karachi (CDGK) as well as 18 town administrations and 178 union councils all over Karachi. Each town and UC has it’s own nazim and naib nazim.

MQM earlier in what we call the “loss decade” of 90’s despite the worse kind of operation against her party workers, voters and sympathizers in which more than 17,000 of her workers extra judicially murdered had been in forefront in advocating for de-centralization of power from the center and the independent observers agreed because the gap between the policy making and policy execution was wide and because of over-centralization where Prime Minister’s Secretariat seemed to be the only decision making body or working institution in 90’s made matters worse.

The idea was brilliant by what we know as “National Reconstruction Bureau” or NRB of a thinking man, Tanvir Naqvi. It is pure devolution of power and for the first time in Pakistan a proposal was successfully implemented and Local Bodies Elections were held on non-partisan basis apart from various political issues. Muthida Qaumi Movement (MQM) which had won all municipal elections after her inception and taking part in elections in 1987 boycotted the elections as the new system was confusing to start with which brought Fascist religious Jamaat-e-Islami into the government.

MQM apart from various political groups earlier in what we call the “loss decade” of 90’s despite the worse kind of operation against her party workers, voters and sympathizers in which more than 17,000 of her workers extra judicially murdered had been in forefront in advocating for de-centralization of power from the center and the independent observers agreed because the gap between the policy making and policy execution was wide and because of Over-centralization where Prime Minister’s Secretariat seemed to be the only decision making body or working institution in 90’s made matters worse.

It is interesting to note that Sindh Local Government Order 2001 or SLGO 2001 as we know originally had an article in which the Law Enforcement Authorities in a period of time would have been transferred to the local representative and Nazims (Mayor) as proposed even by the Police Order on recommendations from some honest Police Officers but was scarped during the time of Naimat Ullah Advocate – the Nazim from the fascist Jamaat-e-Islami for unknown reasons which dented not only SLGO-2001 but was also in long term hurt the interest of citizens of Sindh and Karachi as Police which is unfortunately part of the problem and not the solution in Karachi did not report to the real representative of the people.

It was only when Haq Parast Panel supported by MQM under Mustafa Kamal won the Local Bodies Elections, CDGK really kicked started her activities. It proved the phrase, “Government for the People, By the People” because for the first time there seemed to be some sort of devolution of power in Karachi and Sindh and with the government in the hands of the real representative class of Karachi, Karachi, the cash cow of Pakistan which was systematically rebuffed by previous governments was developed into a world class city with infrastructure at par with the most modern cities of the world. Unprecedented development took place without a doubt which changed the city for the good.

Leading the growth was a man named, Mustafa Kamal who was recently declared one of the three best mayors in the world for his work by the reputable Foreign Policy Magazine but to the people of Karachi, Mustafa Kamal is Number One. In another nerve reckoning incident for the first time, the resident of DHA refused to pay taxes to DHA and asked CDGK and Mustafa Kamal to collect their taxes instead which was a clear trust from the people of Karachi on Haq Parast Leadership.

Coming back to the SLGO 2001 issue, recently a legislator from PPP in Sindh Assembly in what I call one of the most racist speeches in the parliamentary history which should have been cut off by Nisar Khuro, the Speaker of Sindh Assembly said something funny, “SLGO 2001 should be scrapped because it was placed by a dictator and 1979 Local Bodies System should again be installed.” Which brought a smile to lot of people on the hypocrisy of some of our politicians as for the record, 1979 Local Bodies System was too approved by General Zia ul Haq the alleged murderer of Z.A Bhutto the founder of PPP, I wonder what Nadeem would have been thinking?

I also fail to understand that why people blame the system for their incompetence? MQM has proved that with any system they could work and contribute because of their commitment, competence and honesty and is a shining example for the rest of the country.