KARACHI: Mayor Wasim Akhtar on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with real estate tycoon Malik Riaz to launch a joint initiative to clean the city of garbage.

The mayor and the Bahria Town chief signed the agreement at the KMC building for removal of garbage from the city. They exchanged documents and the mayor gave away a shield to the latter.

He appreciated the real estate mogul for taking part in bringing improvement in the existing conditions of the city and offering Rs10 billion support to the municipality for public welfare works.

Under the agreement, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation will take the lead role with the mayor in the driving seat to remove the piles of garbage within its territorial jurisdiction with the assistance of M/s Bahria Town.

Malik Riaz says Bagh Ibne Qasim controversy arose due to some ‘misunderstanding’

Officials said the total generation of garbage in the city was approximately 13,000 tonnes per day while the capacity of the district municipal corporations (DMCs) to remove the garbage was a mere 40 per cent, thus leaving a heavy backlog in the city on a daily basis.

The estimated backlog across Karachi is around 1.1 million tonnes, according to officials.

The KMC and DMCs will participate in the initiative through their available resources and manpower. Both parties agreed to coordinate and cooperate with each other to make the lives of citizens better.

Mayor Akhtar said the KMC and Bahria Town would begin the drive after Eidul Azha from Karachi’s Central district. Other districts would witness similar activity once district Central was cleaned.

He said the chairmen and elected representatives of all the districts would equally take part in the whole scheme.

Deputy Mayor Arshad Vohra, chairmen of DMCs Central, East and Korangi, City Council’s parliamentary leader Aslam Shah Afridi, chairpersons of the City Council committees and KMC officers were also present.

Mayor Akhtar said the KMC would not pay anything to Bahria Town for its contribution to the removal of garbage backlog from the city as it was a voluntary effort on part of the property firm.

He said the initiative would not encroach upon the mandate of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board or violate its rules as “we are just removing garbage which causes immense trouble to the citizens of Karachi”.

He said the agreement was just for removal of garbage, piles of which were accumulating in the city, and to make such efforts sustainable in the longer term, the Sindh government should come up with financial support and administrative measures, for which he offered all sorts of cooperation and guidance to them.

Speaking on the occasion, Malik Riaz said he was ready to provide any support and cooperation to the mayor in his endeavours to make Karachi a better, liveable city.

He said former president Asif Zardari too had advised him to work with the mayor for betterment of Karachi.

He said his organisation would manage or run in a better way if any school or hospital was handed to it by the mayor. The same offer stood for the KMC if it desired to construct or repair roads, he added.

About a recent controversy involving Bagh Ibne Qasim, Mr Riaz said it was due to “some misunderstanding”.

“The fact was that we were not going to take control of the park and were only playing our role in improving it.”

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017