PTI leaders lambaste Sindh govt for failing to stop urban flooding

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Karachi leaders on Saturday criticised the Sindh government for its failure to clean the city's storm water drains to ward off urban flooding and demanded of the World Bank to question them and audit the funds it gave to the government for the cleaning of nullahs.

Addressing a press conference at the Insaf House, PTI Karachi President Khurrum Sher Zaman, accompanied by MPA Saeed Afridi, Bilal Ghaffar, Jamal Siddiqui and Raja Azhar, said that in just an hour of rain, Karachi drowned due to the failed local bodies system introduced by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s provincial government.

He alleged that the World Bank had provided Rs1 billion to clean drains in the city but it seemed that the money had gone in vain. The PTI leader also demanded of the World Bank to carry out the audit of Rs1 billion grant.

Most of the nullahs, particularly the drains in Mehmoodabad, were in worst state and filled with garbage, Zaman said. Similarly, other drains such as the Gujjar, Korangi and Sultan nullahs were also in a sorry state, he added.

Discussing the people’s suffering after the Friday rainfall, Zaman said the people witnessed immense hardships when a brief but heavy spell of rain submerged many thoroughfares and low-lying areas of the city, causing traffic jams and depriving vast areas of power.

“Sharea Faisal, Shaheed-e-Millat Road, Karsaz Road, Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road, Shahrah-e-Pakistan and many other arteries — all became pools of water,” he said.

Even the city’s major public places, including the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, were flooded with rainwater, he said.

Zaman said that the PTI and residents of the city held Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah responsible for the situation because he was responsible for solid waste management and cleaning the drains.

“It is a shame for our country that the World Bank is giving us a grant for drain cleaning but that grant goes in the Sindh’s government’s pockets. An inquiry should be made into this,” he demanded.

Under the Article 140-A of the constitution, the grants must go directly to the union committees, he said. “We don’t see this much of urban flooding in other major cities, including Peshawar, Multan and even in Balochistan, it just happens in Sindh due to the PPP’s corrupt leaders.”

“Where did PPP supremo Bilawal Bhutto Zardari disappear during this dismal state of the city which is the highest taxpaying city of the country and the province,” Zaman asked.

PTI MPA Ghaffar said the local bodies in Karachi had failed since the last 12 years. “We have approved a resolution in the Sindh Assembly for a provincial finance commission [PFC] but it was not implemented.”

He claimed that the PFC had been implemented in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa since the last five years and the district budget was allocated there through the district governments.

Ghaffar said that last year, federal minister Ali Zaidi launched the “Let’s Clean Karachi '' campaign and spent Rs90 million. He added that this year, the provincial government again failed to get the drains cleaned and the result was in front of the people.

“The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, District Municipal Corporations and Sindh government are responsible for this urban flooding in the economic hub of the country,” he said.

He added that the Sindh government made a bridge and a flyover on Shaheed-e-Millat Road which was now out of order and out of shape. The National Accountability Bureau must initiate an inquiry into the Sindh government’s projects as none of them lasts for more than six months.”

MPA Afridi said that because of the federal government’s budget, development work in his constituency comprising the SITE area was carried out, due to which there had been no urban flooding there while other areas of the city drowned after the rain.

“The PPP has shown the worst governance and ill planning in its 12-year rule over the province,” he said.