SPOTLIGHT: Will voters' lists and delimitation rows scuttle the election schedule? Governance in Sindh

Results of the just concluded by-elections for Punjab Assembly seats appear to have cast a pall of gloom on the spirits of PPP, of not just the rank and file, but also of party leaders and ministers. And no wonder! So close to the General Election a whitewash of this magnitude does not augur well for PPP and even less for its ally as both between them bagged just one seat.
Reasons for gloom With not much to boast by way of achievements in its 5-year rule and much to answer for in the areas of economy, law and order, corruption allegedly involving many high ups in the government, while the Judiciary is defied and obstructed at every step in its efforts to apprehend those involved, chronic and steadily rising power shortages, runaway inflation, economy continuing its downslide unstoppably, businesses and businessmen moving to other countries (due among other reasons to unbearable levels of extortion under pain of death), rampant targeted killings, very poor foreign relations handling, losing ground to poor handling of water resource issues as against much more expert handling of this and similar issues by India, continued and passive acceptance of drone attacks (taking their toll of innocent, men women and children). Shall I go on?
Governance in Sindh Sindh government's performance would be particularly in focus in the looming general election. PPP has been in power as the major party in the ruling alliance for all five years. President Zardari has been very closely associated with political developments in the Province. Many of the issues mentioned above in the national context actually apply to Sindh as well and many of those more particularly to Karachi. Now if the rulers were seen moving - however slowly - towards solving these problems, much would have been forgiven. But in the absence of a serious effort to solve any of the problems people are suffering from, the electorate cannot be expected to forget and forgive.
After ghost teachers, ghost policemen! The Sindh government appears to have made a habit of it! We had had an earful about how ghost schools and ghost teachers have made a mockery of education especially in rural Sindh, and also about teachers whose records and dates of birth were not available so that they might well be drawing salaries even after retirement and may be in some cases from the other side of the grave! Now we learn again from official sources that things in the police department are no better. A police report produced at Supreme Court's behest and presented at a meeting held recently at the Sindh Secretariat reveals that service records of as many as 14,436 police personnel in the province out of a total of 104,260 police personnel serving in various units of the Sindh police up to the rank of inspector are missing or incomplete. This serious and continued lapse is very innocently attributed to "various reasons". How can you control inefficiency and corruption within the basic crime-fighting force if authentic records of their performance are not complete and available on tap?
Suo motu notice by SC This "reluctant" report was not generated by the department concerned or the Sindh Government on their own but was prepared in compliance with the Supreme Court's orders on 1 November 2012, in the suo motu case on the security situation in Karachi in general as well as irregularities involving the Sindh police, including missing service books, recruitments on a political basis and out-of-turn promotions. That explains at least in part how come a poorly run department chose to come clean. If an independent body were to investigate the situation a much scarier picture might have come to light. According to the report some of the corrective actions taken by the authorities like withdrawal of out of turn promotions and formation of a Committee to review cases of police officers of higher ranks had to be stopped due to the promulgation of a new ordinance that empowered the chief minister to allow just those irregularities. Where do we go from there?
SC to blame? With so much going on which is below norm in the context of observation of the law, the constitution and important procedures, can you blame the Court of interference in the working of the Executive or for taking suo motu action where necessary or for observing that "no one among the police high-ups was serious in building up the institution".
No land records Another cause of the horrendous law and order situation identified by the Supreme Court was "land grabbing". Translation: you simply occupy a vacant piece of land, by force if necessary, demarcate it into plots and even build living quarters on if you have the means, then using false or forged ownership papers "sell" it to unsuspecting people desperately in need of shelter over their heads. By the time the real owners, whether other citizens (rightful owners of the plot), another land grab group or the Government Department in charge of the land, turn up to evict the current occupiers of the land, the grab Mafia will have moved on to other "vacant" plots to repeat their exploit. The present occupiers then have to give up their "property" unless of course a political group or corrupt police and Revenue officials come to their rescue, at a price of course.
Preferred modus operandi At each stage of this nefarious activity there are possibilities of violent clashes between various claimants to the property or plot. Cost of land in Karachi as in other thickly populated cities has gone up sharply and grabbing a plot and making a quick sale is the quickest way of getting rich. Different political and criminal groups have different ways going about plot grabbing. Some groups specialise in grabbing government land in built up areas and expect to get away with it due to their political clout while other groups target outlying and relatively unoccupied areas. They are helped in their crime by absence of accurate, updated records of unoccupied land. The Supreme Court Bench hearing the case in the context of the law and order situation in Karachi has pointed out that "transactions relating to transfer of state land in the absence of reconstruction of record had encouraged the menace of land grabbing - the basic cause of the poor law and order situation". One could not agree more! ([email protected])