Not just the money?

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s announcement of a package worth a staggering Rs1100 billion to transform Karachi, must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Notwithstanding the official fanfare from Islamabad’s power corridors to support the event, the journey ahead for tackling Karachi’s woes will indeed be long and arduous. Dedicating funds to Karachi’s uplift without aggressively tackling its multiple challenges, risks pouring more of Pakistan’s shrinking national resources in to a bottomless pit.

In recent weeks, the plight of Karachi has been graphically highlighted as a combination of excessive rainfall and a widespread breakdown of power, further aggravated conditions across the metropolitan city with a population of more than 22 million. Karachi’s population and its physical size together exceed the size of many countries around the world.

Many of the city’s ailments have evolved from the way that Pakistan’s successive regimes have tackled Karachi’s challenges over the past decades. A breakdown of governance and weakening of key institutions over this long period of time has been followed by powerful groups, with vested interests taking charge of key policy areas across Pakistan including Karachi. In sharp contrast to the past, when the writ of the Pakistani state carried value, conditions today in many parts of the country including Karachi present a dismal picture.

Exactly how the proposed package of Rs1100 billion was framed under Prime Minister Khan’s watch, taking into account Karachi’s needs and priority areas for expenditure, remains unclear for now. Furthermore, the mere establishment of a high-powered committee representing different institutions to oversee future expenditures under PM Khan’s leadership only scratches the surface of an otherwise complicated challenge.

Karachi’s evolution in past decades to its present condition adequately highlights a key point – that pouring money into the city does not guarantee solving its multiple challenges. Going forward, three fundamental aspects of Karachi’s future must be tackled upfront to begin addressing the malaise.

First, Karachi with its geographical and population size is much too large to continue being treated as just a provincial capital. On the contrary, Karachi needs a separate identity where its ruling and administrative structures are forced to take responsibility for tackling its challenges. It may be too late to reverse the decision taken in the late 1950s to shift Pakistan’s federal capital from Karachi to Islamabad. But given Karachi’s centrality to Pakistan’s economy with the city generating up to two-thirds of the country’s annual income tax, there’s no reason that Karachi cannot be granted a special political and administrative status. Unless Karachi’s status is changed from a provincial capital to a special zone with its own independent administrative and political frameworks, the city will remain in danger of being ignored yet again, once the immediate crisis is over. In other words, Karachi is too important to remain a side show as Pakistan goes forward.

Second, given Karachi’s significance for Pakistan’s economic outlook, it is vital that the management of the funds announced by prime minister Khan must be brought under a tight and credible system of planning and expenditure control. Unless a high powered and independent structure for this purpose is put in place, there is a danger of the allocated funds being spent on areas other than those in vital need urgently. Karachi indeed requires an immediate physical clean up along with emergency measures to restore structures for basic needs such as water supply, healthcare, affordable education, public transport, housing and public safety. A robust and credible system of managing funds must be put in place to decide priority areas for expenditure.

Finally, Karachi’s woes will remain unaddressed unless Pakistan’s key political parties decide to back away from claiming control over the city, in favour of a fresh campaign to tackle its challenges. In other words, a ‘credible depoliticisation’ of Karachi must be the first step on a journey to revitalize Pakistan’s largest urban metropolis. On the contrary, political infighting over control of Karachi will only aggravate conditions across the city, notwithstanding emergency steps taken in the wake of the recent crisis.

Prime Minister Khan’s announced package for transformation of Karachi can only become the first convincing step on a long journey ahead, if it's backed by a central riddle: exactly what will be done – and how – to change the city.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist who writes on political and economic affairs.

Email: farhanbokhari@gmail.com