KARACHI: City Mayor Wasim Akhtar said on Monday that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had made a mistake in the past by allowing people to do business around the Empress Market, adding that only labourers suffered due to action against encroachments in and around the iconic market.

He expressed these views during a meeting with a 35-member delegation of local government representatives of district Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, led by Buner Nazim Ubaidullah, which called on him in his office on Monday.

The mayor said that no serious effort was made by anyone for solving problems of Karachi as no one owned the city.

“Sewage and industrial waste is [flowing into] the sea without treatment and people are getting ill due to contaminated water”, he added.

Mr Akhtar said that the city was also facing transport problems.

He said the provincial government was keeping all powers under the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013 with itself and the city was literally devastated due to poor municipal management.

The mayor said that he had raised the case of Karachi at all forums and also informed the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif of city’s problems in the past and he had announced a small development package for Karachi.

“Now the attitude of the present prime minister showed his seriousness for resolving city’s problems, but nothing practical has so far come out”, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019