KARACHI: Days after a Karachi trader joked about exchanging the Sindh chief minister with the chief executive of Punjab, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told the city’s businessmen that they should come to him with their grievances.

On Tuesday, Mr Bhutto-Zardari hosted a lunch for the city’s prominent businesspersons on Tuesday and invited them to form a sustainable partnership with the Sindh government.

Last week, during a meeting with Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal, a Karachi-based trader had jibed about substituting Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah with Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

However, Mr Bhutto-Zardari defended his party’s performance and reminded the traders of Karachi of the situation that prevailed before 2008, when the PPP formed the government.

Calls on business community to name those involved in corrupt practices, asks Sindh CM to form special cell to address complaints

Comparing the law and order then and now, he said that people are no longer being extorted and threats are not being made.

“No one is forcibly taking factory workers to public meetings by closing businesses, and everyone is doing business in peace,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari claimed.

The PPP chairman told businessmen that his party had never sought extortion or donations from them.

“You should tell me today if you have any complaint against me. Did I ever harass you? So why would I want anyone else to harass you in my name or in the name of my government?” he questioned.

In an apparent reference to the business community’s concern over alleged corruption in provincial departments, he said the government was responsible for addressing these complaints and instructed the Sindh chief minister to establish a special cell of the Anti-Corruption Establishment and police to address this issue.

He urged the businessmen to name officers involved in corrupt practices.

Talking about the public-private partnership model introduced by the Sindh government, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the scheme was a role model for strengthening the economy and creating opportunities for people.

The PPP chairman asked the business community to come up with “win-win projects” to promote green energy and improve infrastructure, according to a press release issued by the media cell of Bilawal House.

He said Sindh was the only province where several public-private projects are running successfully.

He stressed that the problems faced by Karachi could be solved under the same model.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari added that no other province had the potential to generate as much energy as Sindh and stressed the need to increase private investment in solar and wind sectors.

The PPP chairman said the federal government claimed that loadshedding had been eliminated, but most areas were still facing 18-hour power cuts.

He said the electricity tariffs are fixed in Islamabad without taking the business community and provincial government into confidence. “You and I bear the brunt of such policies.”

He announced that the Sindh government would take over the electricity distribution companies (Discos) privatised by the federal government under the PPP model.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2025