Meet Karachi’s most optimistic man, the City Nazim

[Naveed Yaseen]

It is difficult not to let his enthusiasm rub off on you. Karachi’s Nazim, Mustafa Kamal, is a man who has great plans for Pakistan’s biggest city. He wants to change the way the city lives, eats and breathes but himself admits it is a tall order. “I have one life, two hands and 24 hours in a day,” he exclaims in mock helplessness.

Ever since he was sworn in as Mayor of Karachi in October 2005, Kamal says that his life has totally changed. He has little time for family and friends. While his Tanzania-born wife and children live close by, he gets little time to spend with them. “It will be one of my happiest days if my party says to me that they are replacing me so that I can go and work for the party,” says Kamal, who was put on the position by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

A former Sindh minister for Information Technology, Mustafa Kamal was the surprise choice for the position of Karachi’s mayor when more senior and seasoned party members were tipped for the job. MQM chief Altaf Husain not only gave Mustafa Kamal the opportunity but, as Mustafa recalls, also told him that he was no more just an MQM man but a mayor of Karachi which meant looking after all the communities that the city of Karachi is home to.

His first challenge was to slip into the shoes of the previous Nazim, Advocate Naimatullah Khan. Naimatullah Khan, who belonged to the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami, was almost twice the age of Mustafa Kamal.

“When I started this job, I was scared people would not take me seriously because of my age.” But the backing of the MQM and a positive attitude made many take up and notice the new man on the block.

Three years on, Mustafa Kamal admits all is not well in the Soviet-style bureaucracy that passes off as Karachi’s City Government.

There is inefficiency, corruption and more corruption. Thousands of people visit the CDGK’s head office at Civic Centre daily for work that should be done automatically. The overstaffed empire, however, runs on graft and gratification. Two stints by elected mayors may have dented the system, but the core remains rotten.

“I first took on the big fish,” recalls Mustafa Kamal, who said he called senior officers of the CDGK and told them to stop their corrupt practices. Kamal said that many of those who were called had been around for several years as they were able to pay their way into staying on. “This time round, they got the message except for some who went on being corrupt and were sacked.”

The city mayor admits, however, that the battle is half won. “The small fish remain. But I am working on that too.”

After enhancing the city’s water supply system, overhauling large parts of the sewage system, building roads, flyovers and underpasses, the next challenge for the CDGK was to put into place a mass transit system. Despite having a population exceeding 15 million, unlike other cities of its size, Karachi does not have a proper transportation system.

Most of the buses on Karachi’s roads are not roadworthy and almost all are privately owned.

The people of the city unfortunate enough not to have a means of transport pack into these buses like sardines despite the fact that transportation is not cheap and the buses are not by any means satisfactory. A circle of greedy transporters, corrupt traffic policemen and bitter and frustrated commuters resigned to their fate has meant that the public transport system in Karachi, regardless of which government was in power, went from bad to worse.

An earlier move to introduce large CNG buses by the CDGK failed because there was no proper back up system to keep the buses in shape. Mustafa Kamal says that, as a first step to make the public transport system more workable, the CDGK has introduced shiny new bus shelters.

“The idea is to get people attracted to them so that the buses stop where the people are and not the other way round,” says the Karachi Mayor.

But this like throwing pebbles into the sea.

The bigger challenge is transport for almost million commuters who want to get from one side of the city to another and back on any given day. A circular railway system that was in place is now almost dormant. Mustafa Kamal says that it is his commitment to put into place the foundation of an integrated mass transit system. “I will do it,” he says as he bangs on his table.

His office is sparse and on one side is a huge screen connected to a computer keyboard. On the other sid, there is a picture of Mustafa Kamal being affectionately hugged by MQM leader Altaf Hussain.

The Karachi mayor, who sports a goatee and is happy to wear natty suits, comments that while putting in place an integrated transportation system requires big money, the problem was not financing, which was available at concessionary rates from international financial agencies as well as donor arms of foreign governments; it was the non cooperation of Islamabad. “The government would not issue a sovereign guarantee to the financiers.”

Kamal says that contrary to public perception, while former President Musharraf was supportive of the City government, it was not smooth sailing all along. “I asked that the traffic police be given under the city government. This was denied. I asked that the various agencies that are stakeholders in the city be given under some loose control to the City government and this was not allowed. It was not easy. We had to fight for even the smallest things all the way,” he recalls.

Things, however, have now gotten worse, he admits. The arrival of a People’s Party government in Sindh has brought with it a Chief Minister who wants to take over control of the Mass Transit program despite the fact that it is the CDGK which has done all the spadework for this.

The local bodies minister, Agha Siraj Durrani, has not helped matters as well. It is under his ministry’s ambit that the City government works and there has been much happening in the thorny relationship.

Durrani and Chief Minister Shah are intent on tightening the purse strings of Karachi’s government.

Mustafa Kamal smiles when asked how this can happen since the PPP and the MQM are coalition partners. But he does say that when the Jamaat-e-Islami was running the show in the CDGK and the MQM was at holding the local bodies portfolio, there was no tension because whatever was being done “was in the greater good of the people of Karachi.”

It is this sense of purpose, says Mustafa Kamal, that keeps him going.

Although he has started smoking of late, he insists that it is not because of the pressures of the being the Father of Fifteen Million, as some are wont to call him.

Asked how he wants to be remembered once he leaves this high-pressure job, Mustafa Kamal only smiles sheepishly and says he does not want to be remembered but he wants his party to be remembered. “No one can say that the MQM did not do its task when the challenge came,” he comments.

The people of Karachi admit that much has been done, say observers.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=138194