The face of any nation is its capital city. It’s not just a political seat — it’s the country’s soft image, a reflection hof its discipline, culture, and competence. A clean, organized, and efficiently run capital signals to the world that this is a nation that takes itself seriously. Tragically, Pakistan has long and stubbornly failed to grasp this simple, elementary truth.
Look at Baku. Yes — Baku. The capital of Azerbaijan, a country barely three decades old since independence. Today, Baku stands as one of the most modern, spotless, and well-managed cities in the region. Its wide boulevards, pristine parks, and immaculate public spaces don’t just attract tourists; they project a national image of order and modernity. If a country much smaller than our size, with fewer resources and virtually no prior statecraft experience, can pull this off — what possible excuse does Islamabad have for its state of decay?
Once regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful capitals, Islamabad is now a crumbling disgrace. Roads riddled with potholes. Streetlights permanently dead. Parks abandoned and overgrown. Sewage systems coughing their last. Law and order visibly deteriorating. And presiding over this tragic collapse is the Capital Development Authority (CDA) — a textbook example of incompetence, corruption, and bureaucratic inertia.
But wait, it gets better.
The government, in its infinite wisdom, now wants to introduce an elected setup to run the CDA. You’d laugh if it weren’t so criminal. Anyone even remotely familiar with the state of local government bodies elsewhere in Pakistan knows what this experiment will bring: horse-trading, patronage politics, union mafias, and another fat layer of corruption. Islamabad doesn’t need politicians masquerading as managers. It needs a firm, decisive, apolitical administrator — preferably a sitting Brigadier or Major
General — to take charge and clean house.
And before someone starts foaming at the mouth about military encroachment into civilian spaces, let’s drop the pretenses. The military already runs DHA, cantonments, and sensitive border regions a thousand times better than our civilian setups. Islamabad isn’t a political playground; it’s a strategic, capital city where every building, road, and decision reflects upon the state itself. And right now, it reflects incompetence, decay, and utter disregard.
The first order of business? Downsizing CDA’s bloated, unproductive staff. At least 90-95% of these leeches are either redundant, incompetent, or actively corrupt. Most functions should be outsourced to reputed private firms under tight oversight. Those unwilling or unable to perform should be shown the door — not in a year, not after some “inquiry,” but tomorrow morning.
Don’t believe it’s that bad? Let me give you a personal example. In my neighborhood, there’s a park where, for the past three years, CDA workers religiously arrive, dig a few token holes for some ceremonial “plantation drive,” then vanish. No plants are ever planted. Despite having their own nurseries and receiving constant complaints, the cycle repeats. This isn’t some isolated mishap — its CDA’s daily operating manual.
And it’s not just the parks. Stray dogs roam freely, even in supposedly “secure” red zone areas. Public spaces are left in filth. The only thing CDA officials excel at is forming unions to blackmail, paralyze operations, and pressure anyone expecting them to work. The Mafia has its code; CDA has its unions.
The agency’s real passion, of course, lies in developing new sectors, chopping down trees, and minting money. It’s public knowledge that CDA chairmen and members routinely become billionaires by the end of their tenure. Some don’t even bother returning to their parent departments after deputation — because why go back to legitimate salaries after tasting the nectar of unchecked power and illicit wealth?
Property transfers? Bribes. Map approvals? Bribes. Need a birth or death certificate? More bribes — even if your paperwork is flawless. It’s not an institution; it’s a glorified extortion racket, meticulously designed to bleed citizens dry at every step. And you seriously expect this mafia-run setup to manage a capital city of two million people? What a sick joke.
Let’s talk about the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. Even the condition of its washrooms would make you think twice before entering. If the highest office in the land can’t manage a washroom, what hope is there for a 906-square-kilometer city? The favorite excuse from the bureaucracy is always, “Military interference doesn’t let us work.” Really? Who stops them from cleaning their offices and washrooms? Which uniformed man prevents a garbage truck from collecting trash or a streetlight from being repaired?
Islamabad deserves to be a model of discipline, efficiency, and order — not a provincial backwater wearing a capital’s badge. The military has the operational discipline, chain of command, and institutional integrity to clean up this mess. Appoint a sitting Brigadier to run CDA. Empower him to terminate redundant staff, outsource critical services, computerize all land records, modernize city management, and crush land mafias. Illegal encroachments? Demolish them. Law and order? Restore it. The lower judiciary? Audit it, and remove judges whose verdicts reek of incompetence or corruption.
This is no time for soft handling, parliamentary committees, or “policy dialogues.” Islamabad is rotting, and rotting cities signal rotting states. If we don’t fix our own capital, what possible claim do we have to national dignity, let alone international respect?
The truth is simple: the military can manage Islamabad better. Let them.
