The governance factor: ‘Islamabad needs a local government system’

The city was not designed to cater to the problems of an ever growing population: experts.

ISLAMABAD:

Islamabad is in dire need of an elected local government and harmony between governance and administrative structure to better serve its rapidly increasing population. This was the crux of a consultative roundtable here on Thursday.

A number of senior officials from the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration, Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Federal Directorate of Education, Private Schools Network, and students and citizens participated in the session.

“Islamabad has ICT administration, CADD and CDA. But it seems as if all these institutions are embroiled in a turf war,” said Executive Director of Centre for Civic Education Zafarullah Khan. He said the Islamabad High Court and District Courts are Islamabad’s judicial branch, while CDA, ICT administration, and CADD are the executive branch but there is no elected local government. “Who will implement Article 140-A (which promises local government) in Islamabad?” he asked.

CADD Federal Secretary Imtiaz Inayat Elahi said, “I agree that we need to institutionalise efforts for developing the city in consultation with the local population.” However, he said, Islamabad does not need any drastic change in its governance structure. There are shortcomings in some of the big projects of CDA, but, he stated, that was not a big issue and would be overcome eventually.

He said that CADD is a new division and the devolved ministries’ works were assigned to it and the CDA would also be worked under this division. He said that the CADD would soon establish policy framework for the federal capital.

However, PPP leader Faisal Sakhi Butt disagreed, saying that was almost impossible to run the city without an effective public-private partnership. “Governance is the core issue in the city; [Islamabad] was not designed for this much population. There are serious flaws in the sewerage system.  Over the last few years, the population burden has increased and the master plan needs to be revised accordingly,” he said.

Dr Afzal Babar of Private Schools Network agreed with Butt, saying these problems could not be resolved until local people were involved in management of the city. Like, Gilgit-Baltistan, he suggested that Islamabad should also have a local setup.

The roundtable was organised by the Centre for Civic Education and Forum of Federations.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2011.