Sindh Assembly stinks!

It has been two long years that part of the country’s largest provincial legislature, Sindh Assembly (SA), has been under stinky sewerage water with the authorities concerned doing nothing other than just passing the buck to each other.
It was in November 2010 when startup of the construction work at the New Sindh Assembly building, then envisaged to be built at a mammoth cost of Rs 3 billion, had damaged half of the sewerage lines of the Assembly Secretariat.
Consequently, an insider at the provincial legislature recalled, much of the assembly building, specially the basement, was flooded with stinky sewage water and remained under the same for most of the time during the past couple of years.
Presently, at the SA a hurriedly-called session is underway to, what the new-found opposition claims, pass the “unpopular” Sindh People’s Local Government Ordinance 2012 (SPLGO 2012) into law. A short visit to the Assembly premises nowadays would reveal that the basement is filled with knee-deep dirty sewage water.
The insider warned that if left unattended the sewage water would one day overflow to the main lobby, which is a daily transit route for the elected representatives under the nose of whom such a serious problem has been lingering for two long years.
“The laborers at the new building had damaged half of the underground sewerage pipelines in the backyard where now the new building is under construction,” sources said.
They attributed the collapse of drainage system to the ill-planned construction work at the new assembly building which is fast nearing completion.
One of the sources said it was some two years back, in 2010, when wastewater had flooded the basement of the historical building, the foundation stone of which was laid by then Governor of Sindh Sir Lancelot Graham in March 1940.
“The sewerage lines that used to drain out dirty water have been rendered broken, thus useless since then,” he said.
Talking to Pakistan Today, an assembly official, requesting anonymity, wondered how come such a major problem went unnoticed during the last two long years. He said Speaker Nisar Khuhro and Secretary Hadi Bux Buriro must not have been unwary of the issue.
It may be mentioned here that Secretary Buriro is currently under treatment at a local hospital after facing an accident weeks back on the superhighway. His son, Additional Secretary Ghulam Muhammad Umer Farooque, is officiating in his place as the acting secretary.
The official said it seemed that work at the new building was initiated without taking into account the fate of existing sewerage system, particularly the underground gutter pipelines.
Instead of fixing up the matter, the SA bureaucracy and Public Works Department (PWD) indulged into a tussle that actually led the problem linger on to this date.
While a state officer from the Sindh Secretariat wrote at least twice to PWD asking it to repair the pipelines, the latter tended to pass the buck onto the contractors working on the new assembly building project, who, the department argued, were responsible for the damage.
On the other hand, one of the sources said, the project director was also not ready to accept that the damage was done by his side.
All the two sides could achieve after months-long correspondences was to ascertain the cost of repair, which was estimated by the PWD at Rs 0.5 million.
This, however, once again put the issue in the backburner with the Assembly’s XEN ordering to dig a ditch in the backyard for accommodating the sewage water as a temporary arrangement.
“The ditch had filled up last year allowing dirty water once again overflowing in the basement, washrooms of the law department and other places,” said an official.
Famous for their bureaucratic lethargy, the officials in PWD have now finalized arrangements for laying the new gutter pipelines for the old assembly premises. “The new pipelines are being laid and work is to be started in a day or two,” he said.
The government departments took notice of the administrative disaster only when some media photographers snapped the flooded basement of the assembly and reported it.
“The officials suddenly responded and made a temporary arrangement for the problem. They have dug up ground in the backyard for the drainage of sewerage water,” the sources told Pakistan Today.
The remedy, however, appears not to be working for too long. “Once the ditch is full the sewage water would once again overflow especially, while the assembly is in session,” the sources said.
Despite such a serious situation, the authorities concerned appear to be least bothered about taking sustainable remedial measures, the sources maintained
“It has been over a month that the XEN of PWD has sent a letter to the sub-engineer of Assembly Secretariat asking for the detail of expenses the restoration (of sewerage system) would incur,” they added.
“The assembly officials (sub-engineer, executive engineer etc) have not responded to the letter yet,” they lamented.
All said, this entire stinky episode gives way to the question that if the 168 provincial elected representatives take years to resolve the problems lingering under their nose for two years, how could they be expected to give a timely response to the problems of their voters?