Traffic in a bind

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered the constitution of a high-level committee headed by the city mayor and all other stakeholders to review the movement of heavy vehicles in Karachi. The move comes after the city administration was unable to impose a ban on the movement of heavy vehicles through the city at peak traffic timings. The Supreme Court had imposed the ban on the plea of city residents who submitted that they were perturbed by the fast deteriorating traffic situation in the city. What is evident is that the traffic police have failed miserably to control the situation more so because it is a widely held belief that they are part of the problem in the first place.

Time and again media reports have suggested that traffic policemen are happy to receive bribes in exchange for allowing heavy traffic onto city roads regardless of the havoc they cause. In fact, the system has become so institutionalised that we are now told that traffic policemen issue tokens against the receipt of illegal gratification. These tokens are then shown at various traffic points in the city to allow passage to those vehicles which should not be on the roads at that time. Keeping this in mind, one must consider this issue when looking at possible solutions to easing traffic congestion.

The other problem is that of jurisdiction. To make the city mayor head the committee makes it a powerless entity and the whole idea a non-starter. The city mayor, who is an elected official, has no power over police officials of the city thanks to an imperfect governance system that has been in place for several years now. The traffic police is under no obligation to listen to directions of the city mayor. Given this, if a solution to traffic problems in the city needs to be found, it should start with changing the system of traffic administration in place now. Till that does not happen, we will see corrupt quarters benefiting from an imperfect system in which any change for the better is impossible.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2017.

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