Clash with CMO: Opposition walks out of IMC session

Elected representatives criticise local government for failure to address civic issues

ISLAMABAD: Trouble is brewing for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) as members from both sides of the aisle assailed the local government for its failure to address problems of the metropolis nearly a year after its establishment.

To make matters worse, a war of words between the chief metropolitan officer and the opposition prompted the latter to walk out of the IMC’s meeting on Monday.

During the seventh session of IMC assembly, held with Deputy Mayor Chaudhry Riffat Javed in chair, opposition members from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came with black arm bands.

The arm bands were to protest comments from CMO Suleyman Warriach who had recently remarked that elected members of the IMC had virtually no powers.

During Monday’s session, opposition leader Ali Nawaz Awan rose to speak about the CMO’s comment. However, members of the ruling PML-N stood up on their benches and asked him stick to the agenda.

At this, an irritated Awan asked if he would not speak in the assembly, where should he speak. Angered by comments from the treasury benches, PTI members tore copies of the agenda.

Recalling that the opposition had always supported Mayor Sheik Anser Aziz whenever the bureaucracy tried to derail the system, Awan demanded that the CMO take his words back.

PTI members subsequently walked out of the session.

IMC Deputy Mayor Azam Khan tried to persuade the disgruntled opposition members to come back, but was not till PTI members were assured that the CMO would apologise, did they return.

After returning to the session, Awan pointed out how the situation in the capital had only deteriorated since the establishment of the local government. In this regard, he pointed out that before the local body elections, there was a fleet of 20 water-tankers, while the capital received 150 million gallons of water a day (MGD). However, in the year since the local government had taken over, the fleet had shrunk to just 14 tankers, while water supply had halved to just 75 MGD.

“Before the local government was established, 40 per cent of streetlights were not operational. But now 50 per cent of the streetlights were out of order,” Awan said.

He criticised the mayor for spending more time in his additional charge role as Capital Development Authority chairman.

If the ruling party was looking for some respite from some of its own members during Monday’s session, they were offered no quarter.

Raja Waqar Mumtaz, the PML-N’s chairman from UC-6 Phulgran, lamented the current apathy of the local government.

Chaudhry Naeem Gujjar from UC-30, who had won the elections as an independent candidate before joining the PML-N, complained that his UC still did not have an office.

PML-N member Sardar Mehtab demanded that the government devolve sanitation down to the union council level so that elected representatives can help improve sanitation in the capital.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2016.