Karachiites will ‘hurl shoes at PPP, PTI’ sans tangible progress: Asad

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD: Planning minister Asad Umar has said the people of Karachi “are not concerned” with the extent of contributions to the city’s uplift package as long as tangible work is completed, stressing that Karachiites “will hurl shoes at the PPP and PTI” if counter press conferences continue without any visible results.

His comments come amid several days of claims and counter claims from the Centre and Sindh over each other’s contributions of the 1.1-trillion-rupee Karachi Transformation Plan that Prime Minister Imran Khan announced over the weekend.

Umar’s comments followed a press conference in Mirpurkhas of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday, during which he criticised the federal government for “abandoning” people displaced due to the torrential rains in the district and pilloried the Centre for its “lack of humanity”, Geo News reported. He was referring to the federal cabinet’s decision on Tuesday to not release relief funds directly to Sindh.

Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, Asad Umar urged the PPP to focus on executing the projects in Karachi that were committed to during the agreement between the federal government and the Sindh—“instead of political point-scoring”. The minister expressed his disappointment over the “insane debate” over who was contributing more in the projects. He said the people of Karachi “are not concerned” with who was contributing, “they only want work on the ground the projects”. “The people of Karachi will hurl shoes at both PPP and PTI if they continue press conferences against each other instead of initiating practical work,” he added.

Referring to the PPP chairman’s press conference, the minister said if the Sindh government claims that it is contributing Rs750 billion in the Rs 1,100 billion total, the Centre “is not concerned”. He added that work “will not be done through just press conferences”.

The minister said: “Work from our side has started as I called a meeting immediately after the agreement in which a week-long deadline was set to start implementing the plan.”