KARACHI: Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Syed Ali Zaidi on Saturday said that funds from the Karachi package of Rs162 billion recently announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan would only be released after adopting a financial discipline and monitoring policy.

Speaking as chief guest at a seminar ‘Bio-Economy-Future of Pakistan’ organised by the FPCCI, he said the federal government would not like to see these funds sink without achieving results.

The minister said he had been fighting for Karachi and had also put up many suggestions before the cabinet and even approached Prime Minister Imran Khan personally.

The system, he said, was so corrupt that when he took the initiative of cleaning six major nullahs of the city it came to his knowledge that most of ‘kachra kundis’ were sold and it was a big business.

But the most startling disclosure made by the minister was related to the cost of removing garbage from city areas to earth-filled site.

Mr Zaidi said the contract of cleaning major city nullahs was awarded to FWO (Frontier Works Organisation) and as per their calculation per tonne cost came to around $6.5 only.

Similarly, the minister said that Bahria Town which assisted him in garbage removing drive from nullahs got per tonne cost at around $6.5 per ton.

However, according to the minister, if garbage is first removed to garbage transit stations for drying purpose and then to earth-filled site the cost goes to $10 per tonne. But, he added, the Sindh government’s cost for removing garbage stood as high as $28 per tonne.

The minister said out of two weighing machines at the earth-filled site only one was working and each truck on an average carried a load of 35-40 tonnes of garbage. He further said that one truck at the earth-filled site was recorded for four trips and this is how funds are being leaked and looted.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2019