KARACHI, Dec 10: The Nazim Karachi, Naimatullah Khan, has said the city government will extend full cooperation to the MPAs and MNAs from Sindh to facilitate them to work within their specified scope of operation.
He was speaking at the Bilmushafa programme of Radio Pakistan, Karachi, on Tuesday.
“As Nazim Karachi, I am performing my duties under the SLGO and the MPAs and MNAs from Sindh will also work under the specified law and framework,” he said while replying to a question.
“We would not like them to directly contact the officers of the city government as they cannot take directives from two sides as such a situation will confuse them. They should contact us and we will extend them full cooperation and there will be no confrontation or ill-will,” Mr Khan said.
About the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway, he said President Pervez Musharraf had told him that this plan could be taken up only after the required Rs22 billion were arranged in the private sector.
He said there was satisfactory improvement in law and order in Karachi, claiming that this was borne out by the fact that people were now coming here for investments.
Comparatively speaking, he said, the law and order situation in Karachi was much better than in other megacities of the world.
“According to a report, some 4,000 vehicles are stolen in Karachi every year, which is nothing when compared with the US where 0.140 million vehicles are hijacked/stolen in a year,” he added.
The Nazim said though police were not under the city government, there was close coordination between the two.
He said the number of lights installed by the city government in the last 15 months had never been installed ever in the past.
A British company had showed interest in investing one billion US dollars for improving the city’s solid waste management system, recycling of sewage and installation of desalination plants. He pointed out that for the past 55 years this city had remained without a solid waste management system.
He said he alone had signed 20 memorandums of understanding for investment.
He added that entrepreneurs from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the USA and other countries were willing to make investments and negotiations were being held with them.
He said when he took over as Nazim, he was under the impression that he was the Nazim of the entire city. However, later he came to know that besides him, there were many more stakeholders which included the KPT, Pakistan Railway, Cantonment Boards, Defence Housing Authority, etc. each having its jurisdiction all over Karachi.
The City Nazim said his vision was that he would solve the problems of this city, whether minor or major. But, later he came to know that with the available resources, mega projects particularly could not be initiated.
He thanked President Pervez Musharraf for funding three mega projects of the Lyari Expressway, Northern Bypass and K-III 100 mgd water supply scheme. Work on the latter had begun.
He told journalists that the KMC used to have a budget of Rs4-5 billion, but he gave a tax-free budget of Rs20 billion. He said newspapers described it as a pretentious budget, but he was fully determined to have a balanced budget.
He said to achieve the targets efforts were being made to enhance the recovery targets. In this regard, he cited one example of auctioning of a parking lot for Rs17.50 million, which in the past fetched only Rs3m.
The Nazim Karachi informed that revenues were being generated through transparent auctioning of prime industrial and commercial plots.
The Nazim did not agree with a questioner that simultaneous construction of a number of roads was causing traffic problems. He maintained that roads were being built/repaired under a phased programme.— APP
