Irshad Hussain at DCO office was afraid of commenting on squalor conduct of the person in chair as ‘his file might not be shelved for over two years with no justification’ - for which he came to Pakistan from Kuwait with an impression to be obliged for sending big chunk of remittance to the country.
But he was astonished as to get snubbed despite completing all legal requisites sought for construction of his plaza. Why? For actually coming back from abroad and investing? The officials sitting in queues both sides of a long table in the committee room intended to review building projects had seemingly made his journey in vain. Ironically they rejected his map for no reason, but this time identified loopholes in their own laws of district administration. No one waiting for their turn had a mandate to question about unjust, unfair and indefensible attitude.
Does anybody ask questions on these unelected babus who have inherited authority from colonial times? They have in fact imposed managerial autonomy at the cost of dignity and respect of common man. Are they themselves ready to abide by the so-called rules and regulations that they had personally invented?
Every DCO, Commissioner rank officer would officially be declaring that they were seated to perform public business. But they are no less than a monarch.
A local drug inspector requesting anonymity said, he had to arrange costly drug items in every month for a top level bureaucrat of the district. Surely, the same top-grade officer would have been availing hefty amount in the form of medical entitlement through his service. Does anyone point out to such deep-rooted corruption bitterly maligning face of society?
The shocking truth is that incumbent government is in no mood to take a shift toward a renewed bureaucratic system. Today the revival of old system is mainly got perceived to allay residual of familiar changes brought in through legal frame work by former military chief Pervez Musharraf soon after the 1998 coup. One of district official was commenting that the former system had first time pushed DMG officers to the wall, enabling them answerable to mass representatives in real sense. He also termed failure of previous local bodies system to such bureaucrats found in letting down people they were supposed to serve. This is a loss other than the huge investment spread out in the form of big installations like furnished district assembly halls built in different towns of every district in the country - now portraying dismal picture of the system - viciously emerged bone of contention in the power circle. Those big halls have been using now for cafes or rental place for meetings, ordinary conferences. The worse of the worst, the government is reportedly going to oblige those bureaucrats further by restoring their imperial legitimacy through old powers of commissioner/deputy commissioner/magistrate like of 80, 90s decade. Surprisingly all is transpiring in democratic era, going to tread down some good traces of dictatorial era – formation of local bodies institutions in better form. It is likely that any of the next government, other than the PML-N, would probably seek its own agenda on local bodies’ institutions as being envisaged earlier. It seems as if we oscillate to-and-fro on the same path in the realm of tit-for-tat politics. But under given circumstances, one and only thing at stake is respect of common citizen by the hand of those baboos. If anybody had doubt in this regard one might hold visit to any of DCO office to witness as how people were ‘welcomed’ before putting up their issues.