Governance: a case study

Governance: a case study

By Hassan Iftikhar

While the country debates over the scarcity of governance in our land, very little attention is given to resolving the problem. Those who speak the loudest on the matter of governance usually have no practical experience of the commodity and hence are unable to either point out the issue or provide any remedies.

There was however a minor change to this status quo when 10 months ago, a journalist disillusioned with the current system and its political stalwarts, took it upon him to coerce the Sharif brothers, the rulers of Punjab, to instigate a model programme through which the failures of the system could be understood. In an effort to further bolster the drive to enforce the laws of the land, the commissioner and DCO of Lahore were also brought into the fold along with other departments.

The rationale behind such a move was to gauge whether the rule of law under present political circumstances could be established even in a specific area, when such an intention was fully supported by the political players who are otherwise blamed for the lack of governance.

The project was named “Ferozepur Road Model Project” and full authority was extended to the commissioner to take the necessary steps to ensure that all departments concerned were onboard. The officials were also asked to keep the Sharif brothers updated regularly with the progress as a testament to their personal interest in the project.

Ten months on, the project has produced mixed results, and while the project has not been a resonating success, it has helped highlight the deficiencies of the system. In the first phase of the project, 17 kilometres of the Ferozepur Road were declared a model road and uninterrupted flow of traffic in the area was made a priority. In an effort to do so, the oversight committee of the project decided to clear the road of all encroachments.

The first phase was no mean task in a country where encroachment on state land is seen more as a right than an offense. The fiercest opposition the committee had to face came not from the resourceful owners of multi-storey commercial plazas, but was rather mounted by “poor vendors”. The narrative flouted by these vendors was that the state is guilty of destroying their livelihoods. This narrative was sometimes duly supported by the local police and most of the city district government staff.

However, a closer look into the matters provided the committee with an interesting insight. The street vendors who were illegally occupying state land in guise of poverty were in fact paying a daily fee, which was divided amongst the local police and city district government staff. In one area of the project alone, the town municipal officer was racking in an estimated Rs 2 million a month. The committee also realised that this was not merely a case with one area; rather billions of rupees a year were being lost to this parallel black economy every year in Lahore. Interestingly, it was also noticed that the total property tax generated from this road was merely enough to pay for the annual salary of the solid waste management staff.

It also came to the attention of the committee that no shopkeeper was willing to pay any commercialisation fee nor any other relevant local taxes, and only 35 of the 1,250 shops had planning approval from the LDA.

When the committee, with the personal backing of the Sharifs and the commissioner of Lahore, refused to budge in the face of the mounting pressure from plaza owners and street vendors, a new strategy was devised by the culprits, they threatened to use the "shutter power". There were calls from even the intelligence agencies favoring parking and encroachments on the roadside on the behest of an influential shopkeeper.

When it was clear that the oversight committee and the journalist involved would not be influenced by any means, one entrepreneurial owner of a medicine factory approached the courts of law for a stay order. The owner, who had built a factory in a residential area without prior approval, pleaded to the court of law that if the master plan provided by the committee were to be implemented he would no longer be able to transport his goods out of the factory. It is said the esteemed judge presiding over the case found that the government was indeed the guilty party and was wrong to remove the illegal encroachments and provided the owner with a stay order.

The journalist also found out that in order to oversee one road, there are 14 departments of the government that are not only inefficient due to lack of will, but also due to lack of coordination. He also found out that government functionaries were very enthusiastic about starting new projects where there was money to be made but despised being asked to follow up on the same projects. It also came to the knowledge of the committee that for every kilometre of the road, there were three sweepers, seven gardeners and four traffic wardens, most of whom were never present on their duty for the full eight-hour duration.

The Ferozepur Road Project is by no means complete, but it is merely an effort by a few people fighting for the enforcement of the law of the land in an atmosphere where political forces are regularly blamed for bad governance, and for those ‘evangelical’ anchors losing sleep over the lack of governance in Pakistan, this could serve as a first step in understanding the working of the system. 

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