KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday vowed to make the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) a stable organization by giving it a workable financial model and reorganizing its various wings responsible for revenue collection.

For the purpose, he constituted a committee headed by Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Shah with Law Advisor Murtaza Wahab, Local Government Secretary Najam Shah and KMC Administrator Laeeq Ahmed as members.

He asked the committee to submit their recommendations to make the KMC a financially stable organization.

The CM took this decision while presiding over a meeting held to review the financial condition of the KMC which failed to pay salaries to its senior employees from November and December 2020.

The LG minister said the DMCs had not only curtailed their non-development expenditures, but also enhanced their revenue collection.

Quoting the example of the DMC South, Nasir Shah said it used to collect Rs9 million from charged parking and now it enhanced the collection to Rs750m.

The minister also said the DMC Korangi had cut its spending on lifting of garbage from Rs20m to Rs9m only.

Similarly, he said the DMC Central had also enhanced its collection.

Briefing the CM, the administrator said there were around 1.4m establishments/properties in the city, from where the KMC collected municipal utility and conservancy tax (MUCT), but this time it could only collect Rs280m from 35,000 units.

The CM said that the KMC had the potential to collect Rs1.5 billion only against the MUCT and it could auction the services of its petrol pumps and marriage grounds to the highest bidders.

“I want you to prepare a financial model and present it within the next 15 days and then I’ll add necessary input to make the KMC a rich organization,” he said.

The CM also directed the local government department to issue a notification to take back collection of tax from mobile phone towers from the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) and hand it over to the KMC. “The collection the SBCA has made so far should be paid back to the KMC,” he directed.

The CM approved a Rs170m grant for the KMC so that it could clear salaries of its senior employees.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2021