KARACHI: Mayor Wasim Akhtar appealed to the chief justice on Monday to take suo motu notice of the problems faced by the city as its civic and municipal infrastructure had been “ruined due to curtailment of funds by the Pakistan Peoples Party-led provincial government in the budgets during the past 10 years”.

“A paltry sum of Rs1.71 billion has been allocated for seven new mega schemes for the provincial capital that generates taxes of Rs450bn,” he said and asked the federal government to give the share of Karachi in the National Finance Commission Award directly to the city’s municipal administration as the provincial government was not willing to give it in the Provincial Finance Commission.

The mayor was speaking at a hurriedly called press conference with Deputy Mayor Syed Arshad Hasan, chairman of District Municipal Committee Central Rehan Hashmi, chairman of DMC East Moeed Anwer, chairman of DMC Korangi Nayyer Raza and DMC West chairman Izhar Ahmed Khan, who also spoke on the occasion.

Asks Centre to give Karachi’s NFC Award share directly to KMC

The mayor said that the provincial government curtailed the funds for Karachi in the past 10 years which led to the devastation of the city’s civic and municipal infrastructure.

“Only one per cent has been allocated for Karachi in next year’s budget, which is Rs1.66bn lesser than the previous amount,” he said.

Mr Akhtar said 135 projects were incomplete due to the short release of funds in the previous fiscal year. “The Sindh government curtailed the funds for Karachi on the pretext that it received a lesser amount in the NFC Award but the development funds have been curtailed despite an increase of Rs200bn in this award,” he added.

“The provincial government collected Rs450bn taxes in Karachi but it does not spend even a few billion on the development and uplift of the city,” he said and added that the provincial government cut Rs6bn from the octroi share of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation which meant that now it wanted to “close” the municipal administration of the city.

The mayor said that the provincial government had allocated only one per cent of the total provincial budget for 2019-20 for the mega projects of Karachi.

He said the provincial government should not complain of the shortage of funds as the NFC Award amount had been increased from Rs600bn to Rs800bn.

Besides, the mayor said, Rs450bn was collected as property tax, betterment tax and hotel tax in Karachi which should be used in the city.

He said the curtailment of Rs6bn annually from the octroi share for the KMC was sheer injustice to the city that gave “95 per cent” of the revenue to the government.

The mayor pointed out that the provincial government had announced a raise in salaries of government employees only for political reasons as it did not give the additional money to the finance department for the municipal administrations, which would now have to pay their employees from their own recoveries.

“This year also the KMC has to face an additional burden of Rs760 million annually due to the increase in salaries of employees,” he added.

Asking the federal government to hand over the NFC Award share of Karachi directly to the KMC, he also appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of Karachi’s situation.

Answering a question, the mayor said that the mega projects did not pertain to the provincial government and expressed the apprehension that the Rs1.66bn allocated for development in the city would also be misused.

He also referred to the devastating security situation, including street crimes and snatching of vehicles in the city and the spread of HIV/AIDS in the interior parts of the province, and said these issues were an ample proof of the provincial government’s failure.

In reply to another question, the mayor said that his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, had entered into an alliance with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led federal government for resolving the issues of the city. “However, we are not satisfied with the method adopted in this connection,” he added.

The DMCs’ chairmen also spoke on the financial and other problems faced by the districts in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2019