Sindh govt gave Rs2.27 billion to local bodies of Karachi in July, says Nasir

Sindh Local Government and Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has said the provincial government is taking concrete measures to strengthen the local bodies in the city.

“The provincial government alone in the month of July 2021 has provided Rs2,275.879 million to nine local bodies of Karachi, including the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), District Council Karachi and district municipal corporations (DMCs) so that they continue their services uninterrupted in the city,” the local government minister said in a statement issued on Thursday.

He claimed that the Sindh government had in July provided Rs1,074.714 million to the KMC, which included Rs474.714 million Octroi Zila tax (OZT) share and Rs600 million grant. Rs170.058 million was given to the DMC South, including Rs90.058 million OZT share and Rs180 million grant, he added.

Shah said the DMC Central had been given Rs246.279 million, DMC West Rs113.338 million, DMC Keamari Rs148.770 million, DMC East Rs92.709 million, DMC Korangi Rs174.068 million and DMC Malir Rs118.087 million.

He added that the District Council Karachi had been given Rs137.966 million, including Rs87.966 million OZT share and Rs50 million grant.

Responding to former Karachi nazim and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman Mustafa Kamal criticising the Sindh government for not providing funds to the local bodies of the city, Shah said that instead of conducting an audit of his personal performance as the nazim, Kamal was playing politics of hatred being practised by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).

“I know that they [MQM-P and PSP] are struggling for their political survival but it doesn’t mean that they keep misguiding the people of this city,” he said. He added that when Kamal was the city nazim, he was an active character of the MQM’s politics that led to killings of innocent people and destruction of educational and cultural institutions.

The local government minister said that due to the role of the MQM and Kamal in the city’s destruction, the people of Karachi had rejected them.

Kamal ruled like a viceroy when he was the nazim of Karachi, Shah said, adding that the PSP chief destroyed local bodies of the city during his tenure by making thousands of political appointments in the KMC, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and Karachi Building Control Authority, as a result of which, those institutions crumbled financially.

“The Sindh government not only provided financial support to the local bodies to strengthen them but also decided not to lay off any workers,” the local government minister said. He said the local bodies in Karachi, particularly the KMC and water board, were self-sufficient and financially sound institutions. “It was Mustafa Kamal who made them bankrupt and now he is giving lectures as if he had done a great job.”

According to Shah, the local bodies of the city had yet to recover from the financial implications of over-employment carried out by Kamal. He called the former nazim a so-called champion of local bodies in the city.

“It was his [Mustafa Kamal’s] tenure when storm water drains, amenity plots, sewage treatment plants and water board lands, parks and public places were allotted illegally and now the Sindh government was not only removing the encroachments but rehabilitating the affected people,” he said.

Shah said the MQM and Kamal were like the two sides of a same coin. “The MQM with the intention of making `political comeback’ has started talking about carving out a new province in Sindh while Mustafa Kamal is also trying to become a hero by levelling baseless allegations against the Sindh government,” the minister said, adding that both of them would not succeed as people of Karachi had known them very well and they would further reject them in the next local bodies and general elections.

Shah concluded that Kamal had gone berserk after losing another election in NA-249 and he should seek mental therapy to recover from the shock of continuously losing elections.