Pakistan: New Karachi administrator assured of assistance to resolve city's civic problems

Karachi: The Sindh Government will provide whatever authority and financial resources required by the newly appointed Karachi administrator to empower his office adequately and resolve the civic issues of the city.

Sindh Information and Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah stated this while addressing a press conference at the head office of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) where the office of new city’s Administrator Iftikhar Ali Shallwani is present.

Shah gave assurance to this effect as the Opposition political parties in the province believe that the office of Karachi’s Administrator is as powerless as was the case of last elected mayor of the city Waseem Akhtar. Sindh Government appointed the new Karachi’s administrator after expiry of the term of city’s mayor on August 30, 2020. City’s new Administrator has to play an important role in implementation of historical Rs 1100 billion Karachi Development Package recently unveiled by Prime Minister Imran Khan as both the federal and Sindh governments have provided funding for this package.

“From now onwards all the relevant civic agencies, utility services organizations, federal, provincial governments’ representatives will remain completely in touch with the Karachi’s administrator so that we can work together for improvement of the city,” said Shah while speaking at the press conference.

He said that for the very cause, he had established his own camp office at the KMC head office.

New development

“For the first time all the stakeholders have assembled at one place for Karachi as positive steps are being taken for development of the city,” said the provincial minister while referring to the new development package for the city.

He said that the Sindh government would maintain complete coordination with the next mayor of Karachi after the new local government elections in the province. He said that maximum authority would also be given to the next Karachi’s mayor.

The Local Government minister said that complete support was being given to the Karachi’s administrator in order to remove all the obstacles in the way of speedy resolution of all the civic issues of Karachi. “For the same reason, I’m establishing my camp office here so to look after all these affairs,” he said.

The provincial minister said that he was not completely satisfied with the performance of Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) but the situation of garbage disposal was relatively better in those districts of Karachi where the SSWMB had been assigned the responsibilities to dispose of the municipal trash.

He said that houses built on the land of the storm water drains of Karachi would be demolished only after alternative accommodation was provided to their residents.

He said that the provincial government was fully aware of the water and sewerage problems of the old city areas as for the purpose a development scheme had been prepared.

He said that previous spell of heavy monsoon downpour proved to be quite extraordinary and devastating for the city as in its aftermath the situation had worsened not just in areas of KMC and DMCs (District Municipal Corporations in Karachi) but also in the areas of Defence Housing Authority (the posh area of Karachi) and cantonments in the city.

“Apart from the helplessness and shortcomings on the part of the administrative officials, we do confess that better arrangements should have been made to deal with the situation of rains in Karachi,” said the Local Government minister.

He said that recent heavy monsoon rains had badly devastated the civic infrastructure of the city as work was being launched on preferential basis to do the repair work in this regard.

He said that the Sindh government had signed an agreement with the World Bank to get loan for the city’s water and sewerage projects.