ISLAMABAD: Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz on Tuesday sought the attention of the interior secretary to resolve issues facing the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI).

In a letter, Mayor Aziz asked the interior secretary to resolve the MCI’s issues in light of a Supreme Court directive. He wrote a similar letter to the Ministry of Interior last year, but stated in this most recent letter that the “pending issues should be resolved in accordance with the direction passed by Supreme Court dated March 5, 2020.”

“In view of the foregoing, it is once again requested the pending issues intimated vide letter dated 24-12-2019 as referred herein above in the aforementioned Supreme Court of Pakistan orders dated 05-03-2020, may be expedited and finalized, enabling the local government system under MCI to perform in letter and spirit, before closing of tenure, please,” the letter stated.

He said the division of common directorates such as finance, human resource, administration, security, accounts and audit should be implemented as per the decided list according to an interior ministry notification dated Jan 6, 2017, and unfilled positions should be transferred to the MCI.

“This is one of the major hurdles in performance of MCI,” read the letter, adding that the MCI assembly passed the schedule of establishment and rules of business of the corporation in one of its sessions which should be approved by the ministry under section 77 of the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act 2015.

Letter says pending issues should be resolved in accordance with SC directions dated March 5

He also said building control functions should be transferred to the MCI through a notification under the Local Government Act.

The letter said that under section 82 of the act, the federal government is bound to provide funding to the MCI and the government should therefore be requested to provide a budget.

The letter said: “CDA is collecting property tax, conservancy charges, water charges and building fee since 2016 while these are purely MCI taxes as per LG Act. The CDA should immediately stop collecting these taxes and should transfer all such already collected taxes to MCI.”

It said the mayor is the executive head of the MCI while the chief officer is responsible for human resource management, therefore the CDA or any other department should not be asked to carry out postings or transfers in the MCI.

The mayor has also asked the interior secretary to appoint an independent chief officer; the CDA member engineering is currently looking after the charge of MCI chief officer.

Mayor Aziz also said that the employees working in the MCI were transferred in 2016 by a notification that stated that all functions and formations stood transferred to the MCI along with assets, rights and liabilities in pursuance of section 130 of the Local Government Act.

“This aspect/ issue has not been fully addressed and the CDA is continuously interfering into the HR related issues of MCI. CDA has kept the personal files of the all the employees in its custody, which needs to be transferred to MCI forthwith,” the letter stated.

However, a CDA officer said that the CDA has been paying the salaries of all the employees whose services were temporarily transferred to the MCI.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2020