KARACHI, Jan 31: The City Nazim, Syed Mustafa Kamal, on Tuesday suggested that extra salary could be paid to honest employees of the city government if they pledged not to indulge in bribery and kicks backs.

Addressing more than 440 engineers and officers of the Works and Services Department of the city government at the Civic Centre, he said there must be some ways and means in the rules and regulations to allow extra salary, so that some financial ease could be provided to honest employees.

He asked the meeting participants to find such provisions in the rules and regulations assuring that he would fully implement them.

The city nazim said he was well aware of ‘achievements’ of the officials of the Works and Services Department, but he wanted to take a fresh initiative by burying the past.

He said the Civic Centre building had the honour that information of any ‘deal’ struck on its ninth floor went down to the ground floor even before the concerned officers have left their offices, and before evening, 70 per cent of the Karachiites also knew about it.

Kamal said if the city government officials were in the disillusion that the citizens did not know about their ‘deeds’, they were living in a fool’s paradise.

He said he could personally name all corrupt officers and cite their wrongdoings, adding that nothing was hidden in this building, from the city nazim to a peon, adding that he was giving the black sheep one last warning to mend their ways. He said he himself did not believe in a distance between words and deeds.

He challenged the meeting participants to make him accountable if he had committed any misdeed, and also inform the media about it.

The nazim said he would not indulge himself in wrong deeds and would neither allow any other person.

He warned that any official found involved in corruption would be dealt with severely.

He said the duties of the Works and Services Department were now divided and all engineers should be present at the sites of ongoing uplift works in their concerned towns. He said the town nazims would now supervise uplift works in their areas.

Kamal said that ultimately we all were accountable before Allah, the Almighty, and any corrupt official even if he deceived his bosses in this world, would be made accountable in the Court of Allah on the Day of Judgement.

He told the meeting participants that Allah had chosen them for serving the masses and so they should carry out their responsibilities efficiently.

He said people had even extended ‘offers’ to him for doing wrong things, but he had always declined these offers. He vowed to implement the system of accountability in the whole city government.

He said the city government contractors that they would get one per cent extra money if they completed their projects before schedule.

He said the said system could be applied to the salaries of the city government employees as well, provided a provision for it was found in rules and regulations.—PPI