KARACHI: Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has said that the Karachi mayor’s complaint that his powers are being exercised by the Sindh government is not correct as these powers had been devolved to the grass-roots level to the District Municipal Corporations (DMCs).

He said it was not appropriate for the mayor to make sweeping statements against the PPP government without any grounds.

“If he had any solid proof against the Sindh government, instead of hurling allegations he ought to take it to the court of law.”

The local government minister stated this while addressing a press conference after he was given a briefing on KDA’s performance by its officials in presence of director general of KDA Sami Siddiqui and secretary of local government Khalid Shaikh.

The minister, who earlier also presided over a meeting in the KBCA office attended by DG of SBCA Iftikhar Qaimkhani, MD water board Muhammad Khalid Shaikh, representatives of ABAD and other officials concerned, said that soon a comprehensive legislation would be taken to the assembly which would help in sorting out litigation matters to remove restrictions on construction of buildings.

The meeting participants also reviewed the KDA budget, expenditure, employees’ strength, record of land, sources of income and other concerning matters and discussed the strategy to sort out issues.

Responding to questions of journalists, he said a meeting of the KDA Governing Body would soon be summoned pertaining to starting new projects for stabilising the financial position of the KDA.

He said that the problems being faced by Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) regarding issuance of NOC for construction of multi-storey buildings from the Sindh Building Control Authority and water board would also be sorted out.

He said that some studies being worked out about re-merging Karachi Master Plan with the KDA and a decision in this regard would be taken soon. Responding to another question, the minister said in KDA there were 3,200 regular employees and 1,200 contract employees.

He said he had directed heads of all departments to ensure attendance of employees and issue them certificate of attendance for release of their pay.

In reply to another question, he said he had made it clear that if any illegal construction was allowed, the official responsible would be taken to task.

As far as graveyards issue was concerned Mr Ghani said that with the approval of the chief minister land had been allocated for graveyards in four districts of Karachi and now work had been initiated to maintain them on modern lines.

‘Pandora’s box’

In response to another question, he said Prime Minister Imran Khan during his recent visit to Karachi had opened a Pandora’s box saying granting citizenship to Bengalis and Afghans living in Karachi.

Mr Ghani said the PPP had quite clear stand on the issue that only those Bengalis, Burmese and Afghanis living in Karachi at the time of creation of Pakistan or those Bengalis who were living here before the creation of Bangladesh were entitled to have Pakistani citizenship.

And those who had come here after the deterioration of law and order in Afghanistan or in their countries and had been allowed to live here under a UN accord or illegally immigrated here could not be issued CNICs, Mr Ghani said.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2018