KARACHI, May 13: A number of members of the City Council, Nazims and Naib Nazims of Union Councils and Naib Nazims of Town administrations belonging to Al-Khadim group, have demanded of the authorities concerned to ensure a balance in the powers of heads and deputies of the city’s three-tier local government to make the system successful.

They were speaking at a press conference jointly addressed by the City Council’s Al-Khadim group chairman, Siddiq Rathore; Saddar Town’s Naib Nazim, M. Wazir Rehbar; Saddar Town’s UC-8 Nazim, Siraj Quraishi; Liaquatabad Town’s UC-6 Nazim, Taazim Ahmed Siddiqui and others. They deplored that since the Nazims of UCs were being ignored at every level, they were not able to discharge their duties effectively.

Accusing Nazims of different city town administrations of indulging in favouritism, they said that whatever meagre funds are provided to them by the district governments are given to only those UCs whose Nazims belong to their groups. As a result, even minor development works of their localities are not being undertaken, they added.

They said that on the one hand, the bureaucracy was bent upon failing the new local government system and, on the other, those heading town administrations were ignoring the UCs whose Nazims did not belong to their group.

They stressed the need to strike a balance in the powers between the Nazims of town administrations and UCs. At present, most of the powers are concentrated in the hands of the Nazims of town administrations. The Nazims/Naib Nazims and their councillors have been made powerless, although the Nazims and Naib Nazims of UCs come in direct contact with the people and are responsible for undertaking development works in their respective constituencies.

The speakers deplored that the city’s water and sewerage system was getting worse with each passing day. They said that they would soon raise these issues with the governor, beside other burning issues at the City Council session.

They also demanded of the City Council convener to invite the city police chief at a special session so that the members could be briefed about the prevailing law and order situation and the measures being taken to combat acts of terrorism.

Taking strong exception to the City Government’s Naib Nazim’s recent press conference in which he reportedly stated that each UC of the city was given Rs50,000 for meeting expenses during the referendum, he demanded of the government to order a probe where the money was utilized as no UC Nazim was provided any amount for to meet the expenses. The utterance on the part of Naib Nazim has created ill-feelings and confusion among the councillors of UCs, they added.

At the outset, they said that all Nazims and Naib Nazims belonging to Al-Khadim group took active part in making the recent referendum a success, although they were not provided any facilities in this regard.