ISLAMABAD: The seventh session of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) was held on Monday at the Pak-China Friendship Centre during which both sides of the aisle criticised the corporation for not paying heed to some of the pressing issues being faced by residents of the city, including sanitation and water shortage.

The session was chaired by Deputy Mayor Chaudhry Riffat Javed as the mayor is in Morocco for a conference.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) boycotted the beginning of the meeting to protest the allegedly insulting behaviour of acting Chief Metropolitan Officer (CMO) Suleyman Khan Warraich, who is also member administration of the Capital Development Authority (CDA). PTI members also wore black ribbons on their arms as a sign of protest against the CMO.

Opposition leader Ali Nawaz Awan said the CMO is not cooperating with the local representatives.

PTI boycotts first part of the seventh session of the MCI, ask CMO to apologise for ‘insulting’ behaviour

“Our issues are piling up and instead of resolving them, the CMO is saying that we cannot interfere and that we cannot even give directives to a peon,” he said.

The opposition members said they will not attend the session till the CMO extends an apology. During their boycott outside the hall, members of the opposition said the MCI is being run on an ad-hoc basis.

“There is no budget, no development projects and we have an acting CMO,” said an opposition member.

Deputy mayors Syed Zeeshan Naqvi and Azam Khan then brought the PTI members back in the hall where the CMO offered an apology and said that he is “ready to take back his words” if they hurt anyone.

Saying they were frustrated with the MCI’s progress, members on treasury and opposition benches argued that people had voted for them in hopes that their problems will be resolved and that they have not made any significant achievements in the one-year since they were voted in.

Representatives from urban areas said they do have a garbage collection system but do not have enough sanitation workers and machinery.

“The sanitation directorate should be properly devolved to the union councils (UC) for better service delivery,” said the ruling party’s Sardar Mehtab.

Senior PML-N senior leader and Chairman UC Phulgran Raja Waqar Mumtaz said voters in his UC are asking him for the provision of basic facilities such as sanitation. He warned that if the sanitation problem persists, the upcoming general elections will be hard for the party.

PML-N’s Zaheer Shah spoke about the month-long drinking water shortage in Margalla Town.

“I have been trying to resolve the issue but have not gotten a positive response from the MCI Water Directorate,” he said, adding that Margalla Town residents blocked main Murree Road a few days ago to protest against the lack of water.

UC-30 Chairman Chaudhry Naeem Gujjar said residents of G-7/4 have been facing water shortages for many months and that the densely populated sector is dependent on nine tubewells, six of which are dysfunctional. He said he could not get the MCI to fix the tubewells despite repeated requests.

When the chairman of the session said that the sanitation work has been expanded to the rural areas as well, PTI ‘s Malik Ikhlaq Awan said that rural areas do not just consist of Chack Shehzad, which is the native area of the deputy mayor, and that there are several other rural UCs, where there is no system for garbage collection.

“Let alone development work and the provision of other facilities in rural areas, we do not even have offices for registering births in rural areas,” said PTI chairman for Pind Bagwal, Raja Qaisar Ghaffar.

Chairman of rural UCs demanded for sanitation staff, machinery and other equipment to be equally distributed in all the 50 UCs of the capital.

The house decided unanimously that all jobs in grade five and below will only be given to Islamabad residents and that the general policy and establishment rules will be followed when making appointments on posts of grades above that.

The members also demanded the MCI provide them with proper offices, staff and funding so they can start with their official work.

Speaking to Dawn later, the opposition leader said the MCI has failed in resolving people’s issues and is being run on an ad-hoc basis.

“The mayor is also CDA chairman and the CDA member administration is the CMO. What is this,” he asked.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2016