District West’s revenue-generating areas to be part of new district: mayor

Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar said on Sunday that if Sindh is the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) motherland, then the entire country is the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) motherland, so the opposition party will not allow its division.

“The PPP has only four UCs [union councils] in District West. All areas that generate revenue have been included in District Keamari, and this move of the PPP is aimed at getting money and political gains.”

Akhtar made these remarks during the groundbreaking ceremony of four development projects in Orangi Town that have an estimated cost of Rs200 million. Flanked by federal minister Syed Aminul Haq, the mayor was welcomed by the citizens. MQM leader Shaikh Salahuddin, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Works Committee Chairman Hassan Naqvi, UC chairmen, other elected local government representatives and people in large numbers were also present on the occasion.

Akhtar said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had accepted that the KMC cannot carry out development works due to a lack of authority. “We would not have been standing here among the people if we had not been working for them despite not having any powers. The situation of Karachi might have been different if the KMC had been given its due authority.”

The mayor said the federal government has provided Rs1 billion, which are being used for development works in Karachi. He lamented that all the revenue generating departments have been kept by the provincial government.

“Neither the District West chairman nor the district’s people were taken into confidence before taking the decision to bifurcate the district and carve out District Keamari. The people should be asked through a referendum whether or not they want a new district.”

He was of the view that there is a need to create new provinces. “Everybody knows what the PPP had done in 1971, but we won’t let history be repeated. All stakeholders are supposed to be taken into confidence in a democratic set-up.”

He said Karachi will be prosperous when there is an empowered local government system. He also said that all civic departments kept by the provincial government and the police should be under the mayor. He added that the people of Karachi want the city to be a metropolis in actuality.

Akhtar said that all projects under way will be completed even after the current local government’s tenure ends. He said that the four projects are being started with the funds provided by the Centre.

The mayor said the projects include the construction of a road from Shahrah-e-Orangi to Shahrah-e-Qaddafi. He said that before the road’s construction, sewerage lines will be fixed, and that all of these works will be completed within four months. Besides these, he added,

encroachments will also be removed.