Serial incompetence

The failure to complete the Lyari Expressway in Karachi is yet another example of crassly managed projects, incompetence and lack of political will. Out of the many projects ongoing in the city it is the one that has suffered the longest delays across several city and provincial governments. There is no escaping the fact that it is the provincial government along with the National Highway Authority that are the villains of the piece. They have failed to deliver, time after time. They are impervious to Prime Ministerial pledges as evidenced by the fact that the PM paid a visit in February this year to inaugurate the Green Line Bus Rapid Transit and promised that the remaining work on the Lyari Expressway would start within 15 days. Needless to say it did not.

It was back in 2002 that the federal government promised an uninterrupted expressway to speed traffic between Sohrab Goth and Mauripur. Fourteen years later and the project is unfinished, mired in a controversy about encroachments that have not been cleared. They impinge upon 1.6kms of this 16.5km project that stands empty, a monument to incompetence at every level and by every one of the partner agencies. Sources differ in some of the minor details but agree on one thing — that the problem lies with the provincial government primarily in that the clearance of the encroachments is not a priority because of, surprise surprise, political considerations. Everybody has to suffer because some ‘influential’ is being protected from having his or her illegally built structures on land they do not own from being demolished. It is being said that the land will be cleared by the end of December, and compensation for the 49 families that have the misfortune to live in the encroachments was directed to be paid by the directors of the project. It is unclear whether this has happened or not. This is a project that should have been completed a decade ago. Sindh — a textbook example of serial political incompetence, the many suffering at the hands of the few.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.