Bureaucrat ‘mayor’

The new administrator sounds sanguine and hopes to bring about positive change in the metropolis

Waseem Akhtar has recently completed his four-year term as Karachi Mayor. In the saddle now is Iftikhar Ali Shallwani, the Karachi Administrator. During a recent webinar, Shallwani listed the various projects needed by the people of Karachi and expressed his determination to do his best to accomplish the needful. While an elected mayor failed to even clear the stormwater drains of garbage, will a bureaucrat be able to help complete the various mega projects? However, the time between now and the next local bodies elections is far too little to pull off this feat of gargantuan proportions. The city’s interests never appeared at the former mayor’s heart. Well, his achievements — in fact, a lack thereof — prove that. Conversely, he may be true when expressing his inability to undertake bigger projects because of an “empty treasury” and his “clipped” wings.

The new administrator, on the other hand, sounds sanguine and hopes to bring about positive change. He talked about waste management, water supply, sewerage, transport and other issues of the city. Topping the list of his priorities is improving water supply to the citizens. Broaching the subject of daily travellers’ woes, he acknowledged that the port city is facing a huge transportation problem. However, he added that this issue would be resolved soon since transportation systems like Red line, Green line, Orange line and Brown line are nearing completion in different areas of the city, and some of them could start functioning by early 2021. Shallwani sees the extremely old drainage and sewage system as a “great headache” for the city administration, but believes that a number of projects that have been initiated will bring about visible improvement. He also plans to turn Karachi into a “walkable city” akin to some European and South American cities.

Will Shallwani actually be able to do that? Let us sit with our fingers crossed.

 

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2020.

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