By Munir Attaullah
I am not suggesting for a moment that all road development projects should be abandoned until other basic civic amenities have been provided. My concern is only a more judicious allocation of the available funds, percentage wise, between competing priorities
Last week I drove alone on the motorway to Islamabad and back. The thin traffic on the road, even a decade or more after its opening, was screaming proof that the potential economic returns, direct and indirect, never did justify the huge investment in the project.
I remembered how most sensible people, even then, instinctively knew the motorway would be a white elephant. But to introduce a different touch of colour it seems prestige projects are, to use a Jack London phrase, the pink elephants our high and mighty decision-makers often hallucinate about during office hours. Driving alone in the sparse traffic allowed me the luxury to muse about this whole matter of misallocation of scarce public resources.
I am not thinking here about private planes, bulletproof cars, bulky cabinets, and foreign junkets and the like. For, it is unrealistic to hope that such demands, perks, and temptations of high office, regrettable though they may be, and scrutinised though they should be, can ever be completely eliminated in the exercise of temporal power. As Sarojni Naidu once observed wryly, it takes a lot of money to keep Bapu living in poverty.
So, to pine, as we do, for leaders of prophet-like moral rectitude, is to live in fantasyland and court disillusionment. In such matters we can do no better than rely on constitutional and legal checks and balances, the threat of political accountability at the bar of the public, and the self imposed, restrained, good sense (if any) of our leaders.
My concern today is a little different. Sure, Nawazs folly is a boon for the well off, not to mention some of the more humble lot, I included. The convenience of a small segment of the populace is well served. But public expenditure should be governed by priorities, where the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number (as a first approximation) is not a bad intuitive guideline. Even if we accept the reality that politics has a large patronage component, should we not at least expect value for money? Would that huge sum of money not been better spent on dozens of other, much needed, projects?
I drive into Islamabad and see major flyover and interchange projects in progress on Kashmir Road and Jinnah Avenue. And, probably, these are not the only road improvement projects being undertaken in the twin cities. When complete, they will all no doubt be greatly welcomed by motorists. However, I could not help thinking whether such projects should have priority over the water supply, sanitation, and drainage requirements of a much larger proportion of residents.
I am not suggesting for a moment that all road development projects should be abandoned until those other basic civic amenities have been provided. My concern is only a more judicious allocation of the available funds, percentage wise, between competing priorities.
For example, massive road projects are also being undertaken in Karachi. Do I, similarly, view those too with a jaundiced eye? Not necessarily. It may well be that the economic benefits of improved traffic flows in our major commercial and industrial city are such as to accord them a higher priority, temporarily. For, such extra returns will make it easier, in due course, to provide those other basic facilities the citizens desperately need.
Now I am not qualified enough to make such delicate politico-economic decisions between closely competing priorities. Leave that to the experts and the technocrats. But no such fine judgement is called for in other, obvious cases, such as the motorway. My lament, backed up by a further few random examples discussed below, is why we cannot make the obviously right call in such latter cases.
Consider the airports in Lahore and Karachi. Every time I pass through them I am gratified to note they are modern and continue to be well maintained. But, can anyone deny that they are massively under-utilised? In mitigation, can one hide behind the argument that they were over-designed to take care of long-term traffic growth?
My answer is two-fold. If the Jinnah terminal remains massively under-used even 15 years after its opening, is it not obvious that someone was guilty of vastly over-estimating future passenger throughput? Secondly, I give you the example of Dubai. Over the thirty-year period I have lived in the Emirate, I have seen its airport gradually improved, enlarged and modernised every few years, in planned steps, to keep pace with future traffic projections. And all this has been carried out around the original airport building, which is still the entry and exit point for most passengers.
And now we are building another such new airport for Islamabad. Then there is the planned Bab-e-Azadi in Lahore. Would monies allocated for that not be better used by, say, WASA, to reduce the misery of Lahore residents following a downpour? And how should we classify that infamous KPT fountain in Karachi? It cost Rs 320 million, but is in-operational because of the mysterious theft of 22 of its essential components. Recently, citing the nations current financial crunch, the Army has decided to postpone its plans to build a costly new GHQ for itself. That is good news, but should we be even contemplating such a project?
With such thoughts fresh in the mind, I return to Lahore, and drive straight to the Gymkhana for my golf game. I note that Zafar Ali Road (and the parallel road on the other side of the nullah) has been freshly carpeted, and widened with a third lane. Whether this upgrading (in preference to other possible projects in town) should have been a matter of high priority, I leave it for the citizens to judge. As far as I am concerned, the real traffic problem on this road is caused by motorists blocking the left lane (and often the adjoining one too), by parking their cars when visiting the medical and educational institutions situated there.
But what completely defeats me is the need for those two bridges over the nullah, at either end. For motorists, the prospective savings in distance and time by using the bridges hardly amount to a few hundred yards and a few minutes. Balance that against the real accident hazard they pose (particularly the crossing opposite Beaconhouse National University), as drivers with little road sense, and even less consideration for others, recklessly strive to impose their own will on who has right of way.
The writer is a businessman. A selection of his columns is now available in book form. Visit munirattaullah.com
