KARACHI, Dec 30: Almost all the 18 town administrations of the city have been facing financial crisis in carrying out development activities in their respective jurisdictions owing to non-disbursement of their actual shares in property tax for the years 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 by the city district government.

Although the powers of recovering property tax had already been vested in town administrations following issuance of a gazette notification on June 19, 2002, the tax was still being collected by the Excise and Taxation Department, Sindh, on behalf of the city district government.

As the town administrations have, so far, received a meagre amount out of their share in property tax for the previous and current fiscal years, some of their ongoing upliftment projects have either come to a grinding halt or are being undertaken at a snail’s pace. The situation has put the Nazimeen and officials of the town administrations in a fix over their plan to launch any new development project.

The inordinate delay in releasing the share, the town administrations’ main source of income to meet day-to-day establishment expenditures and undertake development programmes, has prompted town Nazimeen to approach the City Nazim, Naimatullah Khan. They have apprised Mr Khan of the shortcomings and requested him to use his good offices in getting their property tax shares pertaining to the previous and current fiscal years without any further delay.

They have made it clear that their financial position would deteriorate to the extent that they would not be able even to run their routine affairs unless the amounts were released.

Apprising the City Nazim of serious implications of the situation, Naib Nazim of Gulshan Town, Saleem Azhar, stated in his letter that the city government’s district officer (Property and Entertainment Tax) had shown the demand in respect of the property tax as more than Rs189.793 million and Rs201.652 million for the year 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 respectively. He mentioned that the tax collection stood at more than Rs163.415 for the year 2001-2002 and Rs94.471 for the year 2002-2003 till Oct 2002. He said that the amount released so far to the Gulshan Town was as little as Rs11.72 million.

This amount, he added, absolutely insufficient even for the day-to-day expenses.

Getting perturbed over the poor financial positions, the Nazimeen of almost all other towns have also expressed similar views and requested the City Nazim steer their towns out of the financial crisis so that they could be able to solve the growing civic problems.