Islamabad’s three municipal authorities -- the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration, and the Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) -- have a huge task ahead: to manage the city.

The city comprises five zones and its boundaries overlap with those of Rawalpindi, creating many administrative and security issues. Sanitation and water supply are problematic and residents who have to stand in queues for hours to get their share of water, move through piles of garbage and live next to sewage drains that were once fresh water streams.

The ‘real’ Islamabad was ignored until recently when the parliament and the media echoed with the issue of Karachi’s waste. At that time, some politicians initiated a social media campaign to highlight the unhygienic state of Islamabad by uploading photos of garbage.

Zartaj Gul Wazeer, the state minister for climate change, says her ministry is dedicated to making Islamabad green and clean in accordance with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan. She says they are now planning to  plant 10 billion trees.

She says the MCI has failed miserably to maintain the city which is why her ministry had to take over Marghazar Zoo. "Imagine, the animals were starving while the meat that was purchased for lions and wolves was going to the houses of some officials. You will soon see a positive change in the city. We are committed to making it clean and green."

Ali Nawaz Awan, special assistant to the prime minister on CDA affairs, recently held a press conference to announce that he was moving a court against the Islamabad mayor, Shiekh Ansar Aziz, a PML-N leader. He said Islamabad was the face of the country but the mayor had turned it into a heap of garbage. He said the mayor had Rs2 billion at his disposal but was not using that money to keep the city clean. He suggested that the functions of the MCI should be given to the CDA or the ministry of climate change.

Islamabad Deputy Commissioner, Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat, tells TNS that the ICT administration has to do MCI’s work at many levels. "The condition of Fatima Jinnah Park, also known as F-9 Park, is very bad and citizens have been complaining about it. The park is Islamabad’s largest recreational facility." Shafqaat, very active on Twitter, regularly posts about the issue and uploads photos of how his team is cleaning the city, maintaining its green belts and opening roads.

TNS also talked to the city mayor. Sitting against the photos of PML-N leaders, he asked, "Why do they demand more powers for the Karachi mayor when they are not ready to empower the Islamabad mayor?"

He said the ICT administration officers and ministers were uploading their photos on social media. "You will see that in all these photos, it is MCI workers wearing orange shirts who are removing garbage and planting trees. For us, it is our job but for them it is just a photo-op," he says. He adds, "I have asked the prime minister to help us out. In developed countries, the mayors supposed to welcome state guests, maintain cities and generate funds. It should be the case here in Islamabad, too."

The problem is more bureaucratic than political. "Islamabad is the headquarters of bureaucracy and bureaucrats are not ready to share power with representatives of the people. This is the real problem," he claims.

Bureaucracy does not want local elections in Islamabad, he says. "Remember how powerful President Pervez Musharraf was but even he was unable to hold local polls in Islamabad even though he devolved powers to district level elsewhere in the country." Fortunately, the Supreme Court put its foot down and local polls were held in Islamabad in 2015," he says. "But administrative powers have still not been transferred to the MCI. I cannot even appoint my secretary," he complains.

Asked about his performance during the PML-N rule when he was also made the CDA chairman, he says at that time he built or renovated 300kms of roads and initiated the process of making Islamabad clean and green.

He believes the main problem is that the MCI has not been allowed a finance and budget office. The recent strike by sanitation contractors was because their salaries were not released. Once the funds were released, they returned to work. He says he is committed to hiring an international firm to collect solid waste from the city.

However, everything is lost in the ‘officialdom’ in Islamabad. A senior journalist, Kashif Abbasi, says no government is serious about an elected local government for the federal capital, "It’s true that local elections were held on SC orders but the PML-N government did not make laws to define how the mayor would use the funds. Now, he has about Rs2 billion that the MCI has collected through taxes. But the mayor cannot use this money in the absence of laws," he points out.

As a stop-gap arrangement, he says, the PML-N government made Sheikh Ansar the CDA chairman. He used to draw funds for the MCI but salaries of MCI workers are still released from the CDA. "The MCI has not been transferred many departments, including finance and public relations. Now the CDA issues press releases and ICT officers and ministers tweet photos of clean and green drive to get credit for MCI’s work." The local government ordinance has explicitly laid out the domain of the MCI but the bureaucracy is a hurdle in its implementation in Islamabad," he adds.

Pakistan Solid Waste Collectors Association president, Jamil Asghar Bhatti, says funds are not a problem for solid waste collection but absence of will is. "Keeping the city clean is a tedious job and less attractive to city managers. There has to be a body over and above the CDA, the MCI and the ICT Administration dedicated to keeping the city clean. Solid waste has so much potential that this body can not only be self-sufficient but also generate profit," he says.

The writer tweets at @furraat