Governance crisis

WITH the war in the Middle East, Karachi’s strategic importance has once again come to the fore. Recent data shared by the Karachi Port Trust revealed that the Karachi Port handled at least 8,313 containers in March 2026, exceeding the total volume handled in 2025. While Karachi’s location and its two deep-water ports have often underscored its immense potential, successive governments have failed to transform it into a modern metropolis. Consider the Red Line BRT Project: slated to be completed in 2022, the project’s delay epitomises the city’s abysmal governance. Writing for these pages, former provincial minister Younus Dagha bemoaned that “Since 2012, the federal government completed approximately 90 [kilometres] of BRT length, Punjab around 95km (with additional projects of 78km underway), KP 27km, while Sindh has completed only 3.9km in the past 14 years. Hence the rate of implementation of the [Karachi Transportation Improvement Project] since 2012 by the Sindh government has been 0.28km per year. At this rate, it will take around 535 years to complete the remaining 150km of KTIP, which was to be completed in 2030.” Seven years after the Red Line BRT’s initiation, the government recently terminated the contract awarded to a private contractor and handed over a segment of the project to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO). While the decision’s impact is yet to be seen, residents around Karachi’s University Road have reported a visible improvement in the pace of work. Contemporaneous with the FWO taking over, the provincial government too has sprung into action, as evident from the chief minister’s flurry of visits to the site of the project’s construction. Nonetheless, the provincial government’s newfound focus on Karachi follows reports about the federal government’s concerns about Karachi’s affairs and rumours about the ‘28th Constitutional Amendment’ focusing on Karachi’s dysfunctional governance. Rumours about a 28th Amendment focus on Karachi. Such bela