Build back better?

Source: The News

Link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=202232

Friday, October 09, 2009

Harris Khalique

The five grey, hollow and lifeless blocks of 12-storeyed Margalla Towers still stand on the outskirts of a busy neighbourhood in Islamabad. The sixth one fell with the attached staircase on October 8, 2005, killing 71 residents when a deadly earthquake struck northern Pakistan. In the last four years, these blocks have neither been razed nor is there a plan in sight to clear up the ground and put the land to some other use. The best use could be to build a monument, a park or a library in memory of those 80,000 innocent people who were killed in Balakot, Muzaffarabad, Islamabad and adjoining areas of Azad Kashmir and the Frontier province. Islamabad Public Library is yet to be built and the land allocated for the purpose is in the same sector. It is a small piece of land. A bigger, multi-storeyed, state-of-the-art public library can be built where Margalla Towers stand. But let's have a bet, my dear readers. The Capital Development Authority and other concerned government ministries will be contemplating a large commercial building on the land and perhaps that is the reason they are waiting for the memories to be razed from our minds before these blocks could be razed. Four years is a long time for public memory, particularly in Pakistan where it is shorter than anywhere else.

The architect engaged to conceive and design Margalla Towers has said on record that he objected to the corrupt and unscrupulous practices of the building company and its engineers when they were amending the design and choosing substandard material to maximise profit. He protested and left them. The builder went ahead and sold hundreds of apartments to middle-class Pakistanis. Now he is having a ball abroad. True to the tradition and spirit of the corrupt Pakistani elite, no international warrants were issued to arrest him and bring him to book. There is a rumour in the capital that he visited Pakistan some months after the incident, met some officials and then went abroad again.

It is also incumbent upon us today to remember more than 17,000 children who were killed while attending schools when the roofs collapsed and the walls fell upon them in affected areas. No FIR was ever lodged against the consultants, contractors and government officials responsible for using below par material and passing insecure building designs. It was interesting to note that in Muzaffarbad, the capital of Azad Kashmir, many private buildings still survived while no government building was saved from the tremors. Contractors in connivance with their counterpart government officials continue to do the same even today. No earthquake, no flood, no cyclone could change their resolve to fleece this nation and suck whatever is left in its shrinking veins. I am not sure how many small and large schools, health units, offices and other public buildings across Pakistan are being built which are earthquake-resistant, have adequate designs and follow the procedures so very well laid out in the documents of respective government authorities.
The only positive thing was the effective relief and early recovery work after the earthquake when the whole nation was galvanised and the international community came to support us. Soon the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) got established with its provincial chapters and their stated objective was 'Build back better'. The initial promise shown by ERRA has dwindled. Reconstruction is slow and marred by politicking in Azad Kashmir and inefficiencies on the part of those sitting in Islamabad. People are waiting.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and rights campaigner. Email: harris@spopk. org