Uninspiring performance

It has been a while since the provincial governments put the local bodies system in abeyance, reverting back to the commissioner system of administration that they can control directly through hand picked bureaucrats. Yet inefficiency and confusion rules the roost. Local problems that could be settled with the help of councillors or the Nazims now require the attention of government officials inaccessible to ordinary citizens. The elected leaders had the incentive of winning support at the next elections to be helpful, while government officials have no such interest. The result is the piling up of public grievances. Recently, over 1,374 contract employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) health department, including doctors and paramedics, have been staging protests to demand regularisation of their services. Work at 19 KMC-run health facilities has been badly affected. The protesters say that they have been working for more than six years as contract employees, and that services of those similarly employed in other provinces for less than six years have been regularised. It is possible that if the previous system was still in place, the city government would have resolved the issue more promptly and in the employees' favour, since the elected bodies tend to opt for populist measures. That though is not to say that every public demand has to be accepted, but only that things should be given timely attention. Admittedly, the government is cash-strapped and hence people in the commissioner's office have to be more careful in making decisions that involve adding a financial burden to the exchequer. But there are other areas that require simple but firm decisions that have not been forthcoming. A case in point is the issue of public parking in Karachi. Unauthorised persons keep on charging fees right under the nose of the city administration. A charitable explanation would be inefficiency and red tape generally associated with bureaucratic functioning. But it could also be the outcome of a deliberate delay. For the longer the present unregulated parking fee charging goes on, the greater the chance for those engaged in the activity to pocket the proceeds, without having to pay anything to the government for winning a contract in an open bidding. This unregulated activity must come to an end. Either the concerned officials should stop the practice or issue a proper notification for auction of parking contracts as well as the ticket fee to be charged. Needless to say, whether it is the local bodies or the commissioner system, the bottom line has to be public welfare. Those in charge must put their act together and try and enhance efficiency to ease unnecessary pressures on the public. Copyright Business Recorder, 2012