KARACHI, Nov 3: Speakers at a seminar here on Saturday said the people’s representatives should try to solve the city’s civic problems that had piled up over the last decade due to non-existence of their elected representatives.

Speaking at the seminar on “Develop a sustainable and people-friendly partnership between elected officials of local administration and citizen groups,” organized by the Shehri — Citizens for a Better Environment, they however maintained that it would be difficult for the elected representatives to clean up the entire mess, that had piled up in more than 12 years, in a short time.

Responding to a question, representatives said property tax department officials were visiting various areas and while delivering tax challans some officials were asking residents to either reach at an “understanding” with them, or pay the tax at inflated rates.

They urged people not to fall prey to such elements as the tax rate was fixed for areas. They urged people to contact their representatives and inform them of dishonest officials.

Citing an example about corruption in the civic agencies, they said there were more than over 111 garbage-collecting vehicles with the defunct DMC Central, and more than 30 of these had been out of order, but fuel - worth nearly Rs500,000 a month - was being regularly issued against these out-of- order vehicles.

Replying to another question regarding sale of adulterated foodstuffs in the city, they said the problem was so widespread that if all the adulterated stuff was confiscated many shops might be forced to pull down their shutters as there would not be anything left in the shops. The problem would be tackled soon, they assured.

Answering another question that a mela (festival) was being held on a green- belt in Nazimabad and it would harm the greenery, they said the area had been reserved for a green-belt, but it had not yet been developed. They said the town was getting Rs4,000 a day from the mela, and it intended to spend the money in developing the green-belt. They said the system had become so corrupt that it could not be cured through medicines, but needed a surgery.

Other speakers said the Karachi water and Sewerage Board had issued more than 1.1 million bills last year, but less than 200,000 consumers had paid their bills. They said untreated water from the Hub dam was being supplied to the city, and demanded that steps be taken for proper treatment of the water.

They said the government had abolished octroi, that generated nearly 90 per cent of the KMC’s funds, and the federal government had promised that it would provide matching grants, but the promise had not been fulfilled.

Gulberg Town Nazim Farooq Naimatullah, Liaquatabad Town Nazim Dr Pervez Mahmood, Prof Nauman Ahmed, Prof Mohammed Nauman, Sarah Siddiqui, Shehri’s Khatib Ahmed, and Farhan Anwer, among others, also spoke.