Waiting for results: Investment to ‘improve’ Sindh yet to pay off

Officials getting hefty salaries but performing very little: Sukkur commissioner.

KARACHI:

Millions of dollars have been poured into the Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program (SCIP), which was started with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). But with no captain to steer the ship, the initiative seems to lack direction.

The project is running without a permanent project director as well as board of directors. “The ADB has repeatedly asked the government to appoint the permanent project director but still no results. The Sukkur commissioner has also written to the high authorities, pinpointing the massive irregularities in the programme, but no action has been taken,” said one of the officials working for the project.

This service delivery programme started with a cost of $400 million in 2009 on the request of the then federal government. It aims at bringing institutional reforms and to rehabilitate and improve the urban infrastructure, increase potable water supply and reduce system leakages among other tasks.

The ADB will provide $300 million, out of which $190 million has already been given, and Sindh government is supposed to put in $100 million. The project is to be completed by 2018 but since it started four years ago, it has been confined to only a few cities of North Sindh.

The government had to form various clusters of defunct town municipal administrations (TMA) in North and Central Sindh by launching urban services corporations to run this programme, but this has only been initiated in Sukkur, Rohri, Khairpur, Shaikarpur and Larkana by setting up the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation. “The government has to make another corporation, namely Central Urban Services Corporation, to start this programme in Mirpurkhas, Umkerkot, Tando Allayar, Tando Adam, Sanghar and Shehdadpur, but this no progress has been made,” said an official.



Pointing out irregularities

Recently, Sukkur Commissioner Dr Niaz Ali Abbasi expressed his dissatisfaction with the programme in a letter to the higher authorities. “Water supply, wastewater and solid management have now been put under the control of SCIP, but officials working there have created a mess,” he told The Express Tribune. “They are getting hefty salaries but perform little. The situation is the same in other towns which are supposed to be the role models under this scheme. The budget is being utilised but we do not know how.”

Former president of the Sukkur Citizen Alliance, Shabir Ahmed, said that people were initially happy with initiative but instead of getting potable water and getting rid of garbage, the situation has become worse.

North Sindh Urban Services Corporation’s managing director, Niaz Ali Shar, however, said that they have made differences by providing drinking water and collecting solid waste from Sukkur, Khairpur and other cities. “This propaganda has been started by some bureaucrats. We have provided thousands of water connections to people and the sanitary staff is actively involved in collecting the garbage.  We are developing the infrastructure on a par with international standard. One can easily compare these cities with rest of the province,” he said.

According to official documents available with The Express Tribune, the government has estimated $2.3 billion for infrastructure services of entire Sindh. Sources in the government said that the ADB has assured of its help but on the condition that these towns would be made role models first by developing their basic infrastructure.

Currently, the programme is being run by the planning and development department, but recently a proposal was submitted to put it under the domain of local government. The charge of the programme has been given to South Deputy Commissioner Jamal Mustafa Qazi. “The project is being run successfully will soon be replicated in other districts by launching the Central Urban Services Corporation,” Qazi said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2013.