KARACHI: A noisy protest by members of opposition parties on Tuesday forced Mayor Wasim Akhtar to prorogue the City Council session in less than 10 minutes after the house passed a single resolution relating to a trivial issue.

For many members and people in the packed galleries the hasty decision to conclude the session by the mayor was aimed at parrying all questions from the opposition and certain disgruntled members of the ruling Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan vis-à-vis Deputy Mayor Arshad Vohra’s shocking departure from the party, future of the council itself and a surprise display of anti-mayor banners on the fence of the KMC building.

When Mayor Akhtar arrived at the meeting, he got a passionate welcome from councillors of his party. Mr Vohra did not attend the proceedings.

‘Unknown persons’ display anti-mayor banners; MQM-P members stand by Wasim Akhtar

As the council’s session began, Opposition Leader Karamullah Waqasi of the Pakistan Peoples Party requested the chair to allow a debate on certain unavoidable issues before taking up the order of the day.

Mayor Akhtar, who was chairing the sitting, insisted on taking up the agenda first and put a resolution relating to approval to a memorandum of the municipal commissioner regarding electrical and mechanical department.

He hastily put the resolution before the house when the whole house got filled with immense noise. Members of the treasury and the opposition were on their feet and chanting slogans for and against the mayor.

The mayor sought members’ intention regarding the resolution with a show of hands. When he saw most members in favour of it, he ruled the resolution as passed and announced: “This was the only item on today’s agenda. Since the agenda is over, the session is declared concluded.”

He left his chair and retired to his chamber. However, the house resonated for several minutes with the slogans chanted by the members of both sides in favour of their parties.

Later, the parliamentary leaders of the six opposition parties came out and chanted slogans in which they accused the mayor of being involved in or having supported corrupt practices in the KMC.

“The hasty conclusion of the session, where the opposition was not allowed to speak as per its constitutional right, clearly proved the allegations of corruption — which caused a loss of more than Rs1 billion to the KMC — are true,” Mr Waqasi told reporters.

He said all the departments of the KMC were showing losses and were inefficient as “billions of rupees are going to the coffers of some powerful mafia”.

He said the elected mayor of the city, unfortunately, showed that he could not run the KMC even at par with the efficiency of the administrators of the recent past.

Another opposition leader claimed the deputy mayor, who had recently joined the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), had told the truth in which he said “he had also been dragged into the corruption”.

Mr Waqasi said the opposition parties with 104 votes against MQM-P’s 205 votes would devise their strategy if a no-confidence motion against the deputy mayor was tabled in the City Council.

Mysterious banners

He said the banners against Mayor Akhtar had been displayed by the members of the ruling party and no one else.

“Who else would do this,” he told Dawn. “This shows the party’s members are not happy with their own leadership.”

However, members belonging to the MQM-P held the PSP responsible for displaying half-a-dozen banners inscribed with anti-mayor slogans at the KMC building.

“They put [up] the banners, snapped photos, shared them on social media and removed them before the KMC’s security staff came to remove [them],” said a council member of the MQM-P.

There were rumours that along with Deputy Mayor Vohra a number of other council members had tacitly joined the PSP; they would be exposed if a no-confidence motion was presented in the house.

The presence of a number of members of the MQM-P’s coordination committee was also noticed by the media and observers.

Mayor says Vohra still his ‘brother’

Mayor Akhtar said those who wanted to table a no-confidence motion should listen carefully that “we are not [going] to surrender but will definitely face all such things”.

He, however, did not elaborate whether such a motion was forthcoming against him.

To a query about the deputy mayor’s decision to quit the MQM-P, he said, “He is still my brother. He did what he thought better for him.”

He said the question of tabling a no-confidence motion against Vohra did not arise as the latter himself hinted that he would resign from the post. “However, if he does not do so then we have rules and regulations to follow to this effect.”

Mr Akhtar said the question of success or failure of municipal leadership could only arise when mayors and chairmen of municipal bodies get powers and authority under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2013 and Article 140-A of the Constitution. “The budget we received for Karachi will be utilised in a good manner.”

He said the day’s meeting had only one-point agenda and the resolution was passed with a majority vote after which there was no business to continue with the proceedings.

He said the opposition members should read the law and rules or engage legal advisers.

“We are facing shortage of experienced and senior officers. Four senior officers were put on suspension by the government and only one of them reinstated recently,” he added.

He said he had limited monetary powers as he could not initiate projects that cost more than Rs20m.

He said despite being deprived of key departments “we are making efforts to keep the available departments functional and increase the revenue of KMC”.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2017