KARACHI, Oct 30: A rare show of unity by the treasury and opposition benches was witnessed in the city council on Monday when Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil, by suspending the agenda, announced that the city nazim, Syed Mustafa Kamal, would make an important announcement in the house.

The atmosphere was calm and members were exchanging pleasantries before the arrival of the city nazim, and surprisingly opposition members continued to occupy their seats despite their boycott call on the issue of providing development funds for union councils.

The nazim was greeted by the house when the naib nazim requested him to address the house. On this occasion, she quoted the relevant clause of the SLGO empowering the nazim to address the house any time.

At the outset, Mustafa Kamal explained the development policy of the city government, saying it was keen to develop the city, which is 68 per cent revenue-generating source of the city, but has been neglected in the past.

He told the house that his party wanted to serve the people without any discrimination and it was evident from the track record of the past one year.

Despite resource constraints, the nazim said work on several uplift projects had been undertaken. Many of them had been completed while some of them were in advanced stages of completion.

However, he maintained that this tremendous job could not have been done without the cooperation of town and UC councillors, saying after being elevated to the office, he never considered himself as a representative of a particular party, but remained committed to serve the people of this city without any discrimination, according to the philosophy of the party leader as credit for all this goes to him.

The nazim made an unexpected announcement of a development package of Rs1.8bn for 178 union councils in Karachi. The total allocation of Rs9.5 million in case of each UC and Rs1.5 million in case of city councillor.

Mustafa Kamal also announced creation of a new department for the execution of development works in the union councils.

At the same time, he also explained guidelines and procedures for implementing development works in union councils.

According to him, all schemes of union councils, which are to be executed under the city government funds, would be identified and approved by the union councils in shape of a council resolution.

He said it was up to the discretion of the UC nazim and its council to get the works prepared, executed and processed either through one-window operation of the city government or through the setups of their respective towns.

He went on to say that the estimates of the approved schemes of each UC would be prepared by concerned technical staff provided by the city government and town, with proper site plan, design and drawings showing details of the proposed work to be executed.

In order to avoid any future deviation and revision, the estimates would be prepared carefully and comprehensively by the concerned technical staff by proper site inspection, covering all prospective aspects, considering the site conditions.

The city nazim said the estimates prepared would be duly signed by sub-engineer, ADO and DDO with the covering letter of the UC nazim which will be forwarded to DO (P&D), Works & Services CDGK for necessary technical scrutiny.

He further stated that in case works are being executed through the town infrastructure, estimates would be vetted by DO (P&D).

Mustafa Kamal also clarified that the whole procedure would not take more than a week and technical sanctions would be given by the competent authority (DO-1 (P&D), saying after technical approval, the staff concerned of the UCs would prepare the notice inviting tenders with the signature of UC nazim for publication in newspapers.

In case of councilors’ reserved seats, the tender notices would be sent for publication after the consent of the reserved seat councillors, he said.

Regarding development works to be executed under the reserved seats of councillors, minority and labour councilors, to get their work executed whether through any UC, the city nazim said the same procedure would be followed after obtaining approval of the city nazim or the DCO.

Opposition leaders Saeed Ghani, Sheikh Mehbub of Awam Dost Group, Rafique Ahmed of the Al-khidmat and Dilwar Khan welcomed the speech of the city nazim, saying for the first time the just stand of the opposition had been accepted which had been opposed by the treasury for the past one year.

They assured the city nazim that they would continue to cooperate with the government on the issues of public welfare and hoped that the treasury would reciprocate the same as they demonstrated in today’s session.

Leader of the House Asif Siddique and treasury member Masood Mehmood lauded the nazim for addressing the house on a very important issue.

Naib nazim Nasreen Jalil, who chaired the meeting, applauded the members for maintaining decorum and expressed the hope the same spirit would prevail in future also.

Some members wanted to draw the attention of the city nazim towards the particular problems of their constituencies, the city nazim assured them that he was ready to listen to their genuine grievances and would try to solve them. He said every member had a right to debate any public issue in the city council as we are the custodian of this house and people have reposed confidence in us to solve their problems.

CONCENSUS: Later, talking to newsmen, Syed Mustafa Kamal said efforts should be made to run the city council in a democratic way and get issues resolved through consensus.