Behind the scenes: Meet the 80-year-old who’s the backbone of Karachi’s city budgets

Masood Ahmed Jafri has been involved in KMC’s finances, writing the official analysis, guiding staff since 1978.

KARACHI: Who wrote this beautiful overview for the city government’s last budget? The stunning 93 pages hold the reader’s hand through a history of its financial fortunes and explain the budget for 2013-2014, the year that is ending. Who is the author of this unbelievable document?

“Why, that would be Jafri sahib,” says one of the senior officers, who is working on the 2014-2015 budget these days. He looks up from his papers as a look of admiration wipes the stress off his face.

Masood Ahmed Jafri is over 80 years old.

Don’t be fooled by his age or humility. As he retired years ago, he calls himself the “fifth wheel” in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation. “They put me wherever there is a problem.” But in reality he is the wizard when it comes to the budget. He has been doing it since 1978. In fact he has written so many budget documents and worked on so many over 36 years that some of it is a blur. If you show him a print-out from last year’s budget which he wrote, he’ll look at it foggily. “I don’t remember anything I write,” he candidly admits. Plus, these days he’s preoccupied with writing the next budget overview, for 2014-15. The city government will unveil this one in roughly two weeks. It does it after the Sindh government announces its budget, which happens today, June 13.



Jafri, who was born in Amroha, India, came to Hyderabad after Partition. He graduated from Sindh University in 1957 and read economics at Karachi University. This explains why his analysis of the KMC budget is so robust. In last year’s overview, he seamlessly spun together all the reasons why KMC has struggled. He explained why the city government can’t afford to provide the services it is meant to. It doesn’t collect enough in property taxation, for example. There hasn’t been a housing census since 2000 (officially there are only 800,000 housing units). He talks about the burden of the Karachi Development Authority, which is independent but still needs Rs260 million a month to run. A tight-fisted provincial government has kept yanking the purse strings. The Tameer-e-Karachi and Tameer-e-Pakistan packages dried up.

But the trouble started much longer ago. “Karachi [local government] has been having financial trouble since the 1960s,” Jafri adds. His eyes flash when you ask him how come so many governments have ignored the need for a sustainable financial model for the country’s most important city. “No one has owned this city!” he says. The strongest indicator has been the flip-flopping between local government systems since the elected government one legally expired. SLGO 2001, SLGO 1979, SLGO 2001, SLGO 1979, SPLGO 2012, SLGO 2013...

He is nearly 75% done with the next budget analysis and overview. While he says he comes and goes as he likes, the truth is he is in the office from 11am onwards each day. Today, he discovers something is amiss and walks over to deputy director Saghir Ahmed’s office, where the budget is actually being put together on Excell sheets. Ahmed stands up as Jafri walks in.

The two men look over the four-page budget summary. “I’m proofing this right now,” Ahmed says.

Jafri seems to have caught something that doesn’t make sense. Ahmed looks at his papers to compare. It needs to be checked. “Should I call [...],” he asks Jafri, referring to an officer who can clarify the discrepancy.

“No, no,” responds a hesitant Jafri. One gets a whiff of the difficulties of working as a retired officer in a highly political environment. He leaves it to Ahmed to manage and ambles out.

You see that, says Ahmed, who is quite junior to Jafri. “He could have summoned me to his office. But look at him. He came to me. He didn’t need to do that.” This spirit of service, stripped of personal ego, is why men like Masood Ahmed Jafri have kept a city like Karachi running despite it all.

You can download the budget overview here.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2014.