Mr Zaman has twice been at the helm of affairs of Karachi, both the times serving as an unelected mayor, and perhaps for that reason he has been against those elected by the people of Karachi. Unfortunately, the establishment of the KMTA was not to the liking of some of the bureaucrats in Sindh secretariat and with the appointment of Fahim Zaman as administrator of the KMC (with full powers of mayor), the KMTA was abandoned as a stepchild and instead the National Mass Transit Authority was established with its headquarters in Islamabad.

Another fascinating feature is that the KDA had entered into an agreement with the former KMC administrator Fahim Zaman Khan for the disposal of the two asphalt plants for a mere Rs 1.5 million sometime in 1996.

That sight made me feel that all this effort made sense," Fahim Zaman, a former mayor of Karachi and member of the organising committee, told TerraViva.To Zaman, the Karachi forum is strictly political: "One of the reasons we insisted on this city is because there is a U.S-backed military dictatorship right now, because Karachi is a beautiful city many times raped.""It might have taken away some of the glory of the central event, like Porto Alegre or Mumbai, but it has given grassroots organsations the opportunity to participate," Zaman said of WSF decentralisation.

Mr Zaman has twice been at the helm of affairs of Karachi, both the times serving as an unelected mayor, and perhaps for that reason he has been against those elected by the people of Karachi. Although a mass transit system for Karachi has been talked about for almost 40 years, it was only taken seriously in the early 1990s when with a grant from the Japanese government to the World Bank, its blueprints were completed. Unfortunately, the establishment of the KMTA was not to the liking of some of the bureaucrats in Sindh secretariat and with the appointment of Fahim Zaman as administrator of the KMC (with full powers of mayor), the KMTA was abandoned as a stepchild and instead the National Mass Transit Authority was established with its headquarters in Islamabad. The whole idea was to deny any mass transit system to Karachi.The World Bank also realized the then city government's intentions and subsequently withdrew its support to the KMTA. It is worth mentioning that in the early 1990s, a similar scheme was being developed for Bangkok and when I had been there last year, I had the opportunity to take a ride on their mass transit trains.It is one of the most modern systems in Asia and, to a great extent, has solved the traffic congestion in the city.

Fahim Zaman was appointed as administrator KMC two months ago after the October 12 army action against the Nawaz regime. He had also served as administrator during the PPP government when Benazir Bhutto was prime minister. Officials said Fahim spent a busy day on Friday and monitored the arrangements for the function of well-known musical group Janoon who will perform on Saturday for a charity show in which Sindh Governor Azim Daudpota will be the chief guest. Sources said the authorities were quite satisfied with the performance of the KMC administrator but the criticism in media against Fahim forced the regime to remove him. However, insiders said Fahim repeatedly complained to higher authorities about the non-cooperation of civil bureaucracy, especially during the cleanliness drive in the city.