KARACHI: Heralding the rise of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Sindh and predicting the downfall of the Pakistan Peoples Party, senior PTI leader Asad Umar claimed that the ruling party in Sindh was going to lose the upcoming local government elections as well as the next general elections because the ‘record corruption cases’ and ‘bad governance’ in its three consecutive terms would prove detrimental to the PPP.

“The people of Karachi in particular will settle the score with the PPP in the next polls,” he said while speaking at the inauguration ceremony of 500 newly constructed shops that had been gutted in the Saddar Cooperative Market fire in November.

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, PTI MNA Aftab Siddiqui, MPA Khurram Sher Zaman, market association representative Hanif Memon and a number of traders also attended the programme.

Mr Umar, the federal minister for planning and development, accused the Sindh government of causing irreparable damages to Karachi and expressed the resolve that the federal government would not allow any LG system that would encroach upon the people’s rights.

“The way PPP has caused severe damage to Karachi, the people of this city would settle their score with the PPP in the next two elections [local government and general elections],” he said. “Then the PPP would not have the provincial government neither the local government. The people of Karachi have been exploited for years, but enough is enough. Now the federal government will lead them to get their rights.”

The strong words and warning to the PPP government by the newly-appointed secretary general of the PTI came after he shared with the audience a sketch of development projects for Karachi and called for stronger LG system to get maximum benefit of the federal-government funded projects.

He was sure that the Rs120 billion project of K-IV water supply scheme would only benefit Karachiites when an empowered local government would be in place controlling its supply.

“Before the end of 2023, K-IV will start supplying 260 million gallons of water to Karachi. But here the job of KWSB starts. And for effective, transparent and successful supply, there should be an empowered local government system which controls all these affairs,” said Mr Umar.

He said Karachi was deprived of a modern transport system, but the recently inaugurated Green Line Bus project was one of the most modern transport services in the region.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2022