Pakistan: Karachi's roads in ruins despite payments made by Sui Southern Gas Company

Karachi [Pakistan], July 14 : Despite the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) claiming to have paid a staggering Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 11.9 billion in advance to Karachi's civic bodies for road restoration, the city's streets remain wrecked and largely unrepaired, a glaring testament to Pakistan's chronic corruption, negligence, and state failure, Dawn reported.

SSGC disbursed massive funds to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), town municipal corporations (TMCs), and cantonment boards for permission to lay underground gas lines. These payments, meant to ensure prompt road repair after pipeline work, were made in advance and with official documentation. However, nine months on, Karachi's roads resemble war zones, while the authorities either feign ignorance or point fingers at one another.

SSGC's internal documents confirm that PKR 3.55 billion went to TMC New Karachi, PKR 2.1 billion to TMC Model Colony, and PKR 1 billion to TMC Lyari. Even the KMC itself received PKR 490 million. Yet, across Karachi, dug-up roads remain abandoned, impassable, and dangerous, exposing the shocking scale of mismanagement in Pakistan's largest city, Dawn reported.

A spokesperson for SSGC clarified that all payments were made after securing written permissions and NOCs, and the company had fulfilled its legal and financial responsibilities. He added that the funds were specifically allocated for "road restoration charges" to assist the local governments in rebuilding infrastructure after gas network upgrades. Yet the money appears to have vanished into the bureaucratic black hole that defines Pakistan's civic machinery.

Karachi Contractors Association chairman, Syed Naeem Kazmi, said that PKR 11.9 billion was "more than sufficient" and could "repair double the area of roads dug up", Dawn reported. His comments only further indict the city's civic bodies for failing to perform the basic task of restoring roads.

This blatant disregard for public infrastructure highlights a broader rot in Pakistan's governance. While the state claims modernisation, Karachi's crumbling roads are symbolic of a decaying system, where corruption trumps accountability and the people pay the price, literally and figuratively. Once again, Pakistan's institutional failure has left its citizens stranded in a mess of broken promises and broken streets.

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