Karachi: A video showing a citizen running after a service truck of Karachi power utility and throwing garbage in it has gone viral on social media.
As a man throws trash in the vehicle others are heard shouting that the service vehicle should collect garbage, too.
One more video has also emerged on social media showing people dumping garbage just outside the closed gate of an office of Karachi Electric (K-Electric), the privatised power utility of the city.
The residents have resorted to protest as the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has introduced a mechanism for collection of the municipal tax through the monthly power bills.
The people have become enraged as they are already overburdened by inflated electricity bills. At the same time, they are not ready to pay any new tax to the city’s municipality when they don’t get the essential civic services including regular collection of garbage.
Karachi’s Administrator, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, said the KMC hadn’t imposed any new tax on the citizens as the municipal tax had been introduced back in 2009 during the era of former city mayor Mustafa Kamal.
He said the KMC had merely mandated the K-Electric to collect the same tax through its sustainable mechanism of monthly electricity billing.
He said the new collection system would ensure transparency and accountability in collecting and spending the municipal tax for improving the civic infrastructure and services in the city.
Barrister Wahab said the KMC hadn’t increased the municipal charges as every household would pay a maximum tax of Rs200.
He said the tax would help the city’s municipality substantially increase its financial resources to serve the citizens.
The K-Electric on its part has said that it will collect the municipal tax in compliance with the Sindh government directives to this effect under the provincial local government law.
