KARACHI, Aug 2: Former Nazim Niamatullah Khan blamed the present city government for ‘destroying Karachi’ by digging it up without any planning and demanded formation of a judicial commission led by Supreme Court judge to probe into the irregularities.

“During my tenure as Karachi Nazim, I constructed roads, flyovers, underpass, parks, colleges, schools, medical college, hospital, brought large buses on roads under UTS, playgrounds, initiated K-III water project and started laying new sewerage system. But every project was initiated and completed in a planned manner,” he told a news conference at Idara Noor-i-Haq.

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal MNA Muhammad Hussain Mehnti, MPAs Nasrullah Shajee, Younus Barai, Al-Khidmat group leader in City Council Rafique Ahmed, Muslim Pervez and other JI leaders were also present.

Niamatullah Khan said that he remained silent for almost a year despite ‘illogical steps’ taken by the present city administration, which created immense hurdles for people due to its poor performance. However, he said that he had now decided to raise voice against what was being done to destroy Karachi’s infrastructure.

“The present city government’s performance is evident from what is happening in Karachi where roads are looking as canals and rainwater has started entering into citizens’ residences. Why the city government did not set up rain emergency centres and control rooms before the start of monsoon rains?” he questioned.

He claimed that the present nazim had vowed to compete with him in development activities, which was a praiseworthy objective but instead of doing anything positive, he (Mustafa Kamal) ruined city’s infrastructure and created immense hardships for people.

“A vision and planning is required to initiate uplift projects in cities like Karachi. One has to set priorities and use common sense to surpass his predecessor. A favourite contractor cannot carry out development projects in the whole city,” the former nazim said.

Niamatullah Khan said that the present nazim tried to do what his predecessor did in four years but failed to achieve even a single objective, adding that simultaneous start of several roads, flyovers and underpasses had to obviously result in this situation being braved now by Karachiites.

He recalled that rains had lashed out Karachi during his tenure too when several uplift projects were under way but citizens had not accused him of digging up the entire city. “But today, each and every citizen was suffering and complaining about the inefficiency of city government”, he remarked.

“Several people have lost their life so far, polluted water is being supplied to residents and roads have become canals,” he charged, adding that KPT chairman had exposed the performance and the efficiency of nazim and his subordinates.

The former nazim also criticised the federal government for power crisis in the city, saying that process of privatisation was not transparent at all which was evident from Supreme Court’s decision on Steel Mills’ privatisation.

Mr Khan urged the federal government to hold probe into performance of city government of Karachi through a judicial commission led by Supreme Court’s judge. He also asked Nazim Mustafa Kamal to initiate probe into the activities of his subordinates.—PPI