KARACHI: Karachi on way to self-reliance, says nazim
KARACHI, March 20: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal has said that concrete steps are being taken for making the city government economically stable and viable so that it could continue to work on self-help basis even if its grants from provincial or federal governments are not available.
The nazim was talking to a delegation of the thinktank of the Karachi Council for Foreign Relations and Economic Affairs here on Monday.
The delegation comprised former Chief Justice Pakistan Justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqi, former ambassador S. Mansoor Alam, former ambassador and Chairman of the Aga Khan Foundation S. K. Dehlavi, Honorary Consul General of Romania Ahsan Mukhtar Zuberi and others.
They appreciated the city nazim’s efforts towards development of Karachi and observed that if the uplift work continued at this pace, the citizens of Karachi would soon feel a very happy change.
They noted that Karachi and its nazim were not enjoying the authority and status given to New York, Copenhagen, Tokyo and other developed cities and their mayors. It is essential that the nazim of Karachi, the world’s seventh biggest city, should enjoy a similar authority, they added.
They apprised the nazim of their plan to highlight the city’s political and economic importance across the world through diplomatic corp.
In this regard, they said, 13 ambassadors of African countries were coming to Pakistan. The delegation requested the city nazim to brief the visiting diplomats about the steps being taken for the welfare of the citizens of Karachi. They also invited him to address the thinktank.
Mustafa Kamal thanked the visitors and said that Karachi would no more remain a neglected city. “We all will work together for its progress and reconstruction,” he added.
He pointed out that the CDGK did not indulge in discrimination. “We think and act for all the 18 towns same way, either they are the 14 towns having Haq Parast nazims or the rest having non-Haq Parast nazims… Rather, the latter, some times, are given more funds than the former ones.”
Mr Kamal said the city government leadership was striving to get Karachiites their due rights and facilities. Although the problems here are too many, but all out efforts are being made to get them resolved with proper planning. The results will start appearing in four-six months.
He told the delegation that when he took over as city nazim, there had been no proper record of allotment of lands, lease and revenue. The entire record was lying scattered in various offices. Within the next six months, not only the entire record was collected, but it was also properly compiled. As of today, 95 per cent data has been complete.
The city nazim pointed out that now the city government’s expenses were not being met through sale of lands. The city government has rectified and strengthened the revenue system to run its projects with special focus on recovery of dues.
“We want to make Karachi most attractive business city of the region,” he declared.
However, he said that in this fast-moving era, the government alone could not do everything. People would have to come forward through the public-private partnership to help the city government in this regard.
He said the city government had started working on a priority basis to provide quality education and health facilities.
The nazim said that experts and professionals, including those belonging to the FPCCI had been associated with the committee set up to harmonise education with modern educational system while medical experts and prominent people in the pharmaceutical sector had been inducted in the hospital management system, enforced to provide quality and free medical facilities.
He said that results of such efforts had started emerging, and cited the example of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where, he pointed out, even aspirin tablet was not available and equipment were lying out of order until recently.
But now, he added, not only the quality medicines were being provided to people at the hospital, but its Trauma Centre also offered quality services matching those at some good private hospitals.
The thinktank delegation members offered Syed Mustafa Kamal the patronship of their council and presented him its memento.—APP
