July 18, 2008	Friday	Rajab 14, 1429

KARACHI, July 17: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal pledged on Thursday that the city government despite facing a financial crunch would continue and accomplish all its ongoing development projects on schedule for which funds were being arranged through bridge-financing.

Deploring the shortfall in CDGK funds which had risen to Rs3 billion — Rs2bn in the wake of deduction made in its matching grant by the federal government and Rs1bn because of a 15 per cent increase announced in the salaries of government employees — he said that the federal government, on the one hand, had applied a 20 per cent cut in its matching grant being given to the CDGK in lieu of OZT (Octroi Zila Tax) while on the other, it had not enhanced the quantum of the matching grant although the amount under the head of octroi (OZT) used to be raised by 15 per cent, each year, prior to abolition of octroi tax.

The city nazim, who has recently regained control of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) after being reappointed as its chairman by the Sindh government, was speaking at a well-attended news conference at the KWSB chairman’s secretariat.

He said the affairs of the water utility devolved under Sindh Local Government Ordinance-2000 would be managed in its true spirit while the town municipal administrations’ role vis-à-vis water supply and sewerage system as envisaged under the provisions of the ordinance would be ensured.

Asked if his motivation for work which he had said was shaken when a tug of war took place between the Sindh and the City governments over the control of the KWSB has now been restored with resolution of the issue in CDGK’s favour, the nazim replied that no doubt he had said so because as a human being he was emotionally perturbed over the “uncalled for and unjust interference” in the affairs of CDGK.

“As a matter of fact, neither I nor my party can isolate ourselves from the citizens as they have always reposed unflinching confidence in my party and as such we will continue to strive for improving the quality of their lives by providing them modern facilities,” he remarked.

In reply to a query pertaining to the proposed K-IV 600 million gallons per day water project for which the KWSB will have to get the right of drawing 1200 cusecs of water from Indus sources, the nazim said that he is optimistic that the utility will succeed in getting additional quota of water from the Indus source because the project will be implemented in four different phases.

He was, however, of the opinion that desalination plants were the best solution for meeting the city’s ever-growing water needs and in this regard he said that a foreign investment offer to the tune of 250 million US dollars for setting up desalination plants was to be made to the city but he did not know what happened to that investment offer in the last couple of months.

Asked about the fate of those people who were appointed in the KWSB during the caretaker set-up, he said that all of them were inducted after completing all legal formalities and as such their appointment could be termed as unlawful in any case.

At the outset, while referring to his ‘controversial’ speech which he had recently made at a ceremony organized by the city’s business community in honour of president Pervez Musharraf, he pointed out that though whatever he had said on the occasion was in the context of grave challenges being confronted by the country, he would like to apologize to all those people whose feelings were hurt because of some harsh words used in his speech.

“In fact, neither I nor my party would ever like to hurt anyone’s sentiments as we have always tried to bring all segments of society closer to each other,” he said, citing that it was his party (MQM) which had extended unconditional support to both Mr Asif Ali Zardari and Mr Nawaz Sharif when their parties were in the process of forming a coalition government.

He went on to make a passionate appeal to all those whose feelings were hurt by his speech to pardon him.

Referring to the law and order situation and recent acts of extremism in the country, he said that the uncertain economic situation prevailing in the country for the last three months had resulted in flight of capital and crash of stock markets.

In support of his contention that the country was passing through a serious economic and industrial crisis, Mr Kamal said that it could be gauged from the fact that the amount of investments which Pakistani businessmen had made in Dubai in the last three months was much higher than what they had invested there during the last 30 years.