Amid all the crises, Karachi gets a new commissioner

KARACHI:

The government has appointed the Sindh rehabilitation secretary, Hashim Raza Zaidi, as the new commissioner of Karachi, according to a notification issued on Sunday.

As the city administration continues to make its way through violent riots and targeted killings, Zaidi replaces Roshan Ali Shaikh, who took charge last year.

While Shaikh has been credited with defining the balance of power between the city commissioner and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), the outgoing commissioner had been waiting for further orders on his next government assignment as of late Sunday.

“We helped revive the commissioner’s office,” commented Shaikh, “which was really difficult, as the commissionerate system was dormant [before I came in].”

Commissioners have traditionally wielded a lot of powers, including those of the magistrates. They, according to Shaikh, also deal with matters related to revenue and the law and order situation. Many institutions have been known to quarrel with the commissioner and deputy commissioners over jurisdictional issues. The KMC in particular found the commissioner’s office to be a thorn on municipal issues, including unkempt roads.

But Shaikh said that one of the jobs of the commissioner was to coordinate the activities of the 17 government agencies, including KMC, cantonment boards and the Defence Housing Authority.

The city administration has been repeatedly tested over the last couple of weeks. It had to deal with the fallout from the violent riots that erupted on the Ishq-e-Rasool (pbuh) Day on September 21, which apart from a number of casualties left half a dozen cinemas in the city destroyed.

The worst industrial fire incident in the country, in which 258 workers at a Baldia Town factory died, had taken place on September 11. The city administration as well as the provincial government were roundly criticised for failing to implement proper building control laws and also for the time taken to put out the fire. The incident had also prompted the resignation of provincial minister for commerce and industry, Rauf Siddiqui.

The new commissioner being the rehabilitation department secretary had played a major role in the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, which has been principally responsible for dealing with the floods that have hit Sindh over the last two years.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2012.