KARACHI: City Mayor Wasim Akhtar said on Saturday that over 65 uplift and development projects in the city could not been completed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation in the current fiscal year as the provincial government had withheld the allocated funds.

“The Sindh government has purposely stopped the release of funds so these projects could not be completed,” he said adding that the municipal administration did not expect release of funds from the provincial government in future as they did not take interest in city’s problems.

“All this has been done purposely to establish the impression that the municipal administration has failed,” he added.

The mayor made these observations while chairing a meeting of the elected representatives of District West, who met him to discuss the municipal problems of the district. Deputy Mayor Syed Arshad Hasan was also present on the occasion.

He said that the elected representatives and the people of Karachi were well aware of the facts that their mayor was deprived of resources and powers. “Despite this we are doing the most urgent works to facilitate people of the city,” he added.

The mayor said that sanitation, road repairing and maintenance, street lights and sewerage and water were basic issues in the city and the provincial government had assumed the responsibility of solving these problems.

“We have written many letters to the chief minister in this connection but nothing was done so far,” he lamented and added that people were facing acute shortage of potable water and the entire city was littered with garbage.

He apprehended the spread of diseases due to poor state of sanitation and disposal of municipal solid waste.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2019