The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Sheikh Anser Aziz was chosen as Islamabad’s mayor back in 2015 when the party gained a majority in the city’s local bodies elections.
Aziz was a contractor – enlisted with CDA – who also managed a contract of the renovation of the Marghzar Zoo in 2008, even though his firm was not registered with the SECP.
On Feb 15, Sheikh became the first-ever mayor of Islamabad. He came with big promises and claims to address the issues being faced by the citizens, including water scarcity issue. But he has been a mayor for 18 months now and nine months are passed since he became the CDA chairman, but nothing has been changed other than transfers and postings.
Though it was not an easy task for him as the CDA labour union challenged the transfer of employees, departments and assets from the CDA to MCI in Islamabad High Court (IHC), and the matter is still subjudice.
Meanwhile, a serious war ensued between the bureaucracy and the mayor. On various occasions, the mayor claimed that bureaucracy is the main hurdle and they don’t want to empower the nascent local government.
On Sep 6, 2016, on the directions of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the federal government issued two notifications in order to remove any legal lacuna; in the first notification, the mayor was made a member of the board of CDA, and in the second he was named as the chairman CDA – an act which bulldozes doctrine of ‘conflict of interest’.
As the mayor is believed to be very close to PM Nawaz, the issue of CDA’s bureaucracy being a hurdle in the transference of assets, the PM gifted chairmanship of the CDA to the mayor, an unprecedented move, which too was challenged in the IHC.
The mayor said that ‘all is well’, as he took the charge of the CDA chief; he was believed to resolve the matter of transfer of departments, assets, and employees, which are still pending.
Though, people of Islamabad are still facing acute water shortage, even city managers are left with only one-month water supply in both Simly and Khanpur dams. People still face severe municipal issues like sanitation, encroachment, dilapidated roads, parks, and grounds, faulty lights, and others, which speaks volume of MCI’s incompetence and proves that all those promises were hollow.
However, when contacted time and again, Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz said that the federal government neither issued a single penny for any development project nor granted them UC chairmen’s offices and staff, “in these circumstances what else can I do?” he retorted.
Forming the MCI, placing a loyal mayor and appointing him as the CDA chief were these the only concerns of federal government, citizens raise questions over these actions.
It can be said that Islamabad’s mayor’s journey was from ‘nowhere to nowhere’. Nothing changed, no relief to the public, which was pinning its hopes on the new mayor and the new local setup.
