KARACHI: City Mayor Wasim Akhtar said on Friday that the municipal administration was facing acute shortage of funds as the provincial government had taken from the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation all major revenue-generating departments that generated over Rs14 billion annually.

“No further financial assistance or grant-in-aid will be required by the municipal administration from the Sindh government if these departments are returned to the KMC,” he said.

Addressing a hurriedly-called press conference at the KMC head office, Mayor Akhtar condemned the chief minister’s statement that the municipal administration had failed to achieve all its revenue targets for the past several years.

Deputy Mayor Syed Arshad Hasan and City Council parliamentary leader Aslam Shah Afridi also accompanied the mayor during the press conference.

“How can KMC enhance its revenue recovery when it does not have revenue-generating departments with it?” the mayor asked and said that the city could not be run by the entry fee of Karachi Zoo or from rent of shops.

‘How can KMC enhance its revenue when it has no revenue-generating departments?’

He distributed copies of the SLGA 2013 among journalists and said that most of the compulsory functions of the KMC, envisaged in the act, had been taken over by the provincial government through notifications.

The mayor said that the provincial government collected Rs4.5bn to Rs5bn from Sindh Building Control Authority and Master Plan which were purely civic organisations.

“Besides, the Sindh government also collects Rs300 to Rs400bn from other local taxes,” he said, adding that the people of Karachi had the right on these resources as this revenue belonged to the city alone.

Reacting to Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah’s statement that “instead of tapping new revenue resources and enhancing and achieving recovery targets, the city mayor was always seen blaming the Sindh government for his failures”, Mr Akhtar said that the city could not be municipally managed with the resources and departments given to the municipal administration under the SLGA 2013.

He demanded of the provincial government to return all such revenue-generating departments to the KMC to bring improvement to the city’s municipal and civic infrastructure.

The mayor said that the former Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) generated revenue of over Rs2bn annually before it was merged into the Sindh Building Control Authority.

He said that the KMC was facing acute shortage of funds and it would not require funds or aid from the provincial government if its revenue-generating departments were returned to the municipal administration.

He said that veterinary department was an important part of the KMC, but its job had also been assigned to the district municipal administration through an order by the city’s commissioner.

Power cut

In reply to a question, he said that the municipal administration of the city that generated most of the revenue for the country had been without electricity for the past nine days, but the provincial government was watching the situation as a silent spectator.

“We don’t have resources to pay the electricity bill,” he said, adding that the disbursement of salary, pensions and other affairs of the municipal administration had stopped due to power disconnection and the staff was working sitting in balconies.

The mayor said that the water crisis had deepened in the city and the chief minister had also admitted faults in the K-IV project.

“Water theft and leakage should be managed if we want to make the situation better,” he added.

Mr Akhtar said that it was not possible for anyone to improve these things under the prevailing system.

In reply to another question, he said that a major portion of the KMC’s revenue depended on the Octroi Zila Tax share from the government as the provincial government had taken tax-recovery departments from the KMC under SLGA 2013 or given them to the district municipal committees which were directly controlled by the Sindh government.

The mayor said that the provincial government collected Rs300bn to Rs400bn through local taxes from the city and demanded a reasonable share for the municipal administration.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2019