KARACHI, Feb 15: Former city nazim Niamatullah Khan has termed the imposition of new taxes on citizens by the present city government “illegal and immoral”, and has expressed concern over the “illegal takeovers” of city parks.

Mr Khan demanded that the Supreme Court take suo moto notice of the matter, and said there was no provision for the imposition of an ‘infrastructure tax’ in the Sindh Local Government Ordinance. He added that the legal formalities required under Section 116 were also not met, and alleged that the City Council had not approved the tax.

It should be noted that the council passed a resolution on the matter during a session on June 2, 2008, authorising the imposition of the infrastructure tax.

The former city nazim was addressing a crowded press conference at Idara Noor-i-Haq on Sunday afternoon, and recalled that during his tenure he had devised a strategy to generate funds that involved collecting funds from revenue generating institutions, not citizens.

He said an important meeting had been held in this regard, and it was presided over by former president Pervez Musharraf. He said the Tameer-i-Karachi programme, costing Rs27 billion, was approved at the meeting, making it obligatory on the Karachi Port Trust, Pakistan International Airlines, Civil Aviation Authority, Steel Mills and 29 other institutions to build infrastructure in agreed upon portions of the city.

He said the incumbent city government had done away with that system, and was now resorting to collecting money from citizens, which he termed “illegal”. Mr Khan pointed out that no district government anywhere in Pakistan was imposing such a tax on citizens, and asserted that before the infrastructure tax, the CDGK had enforced taxes on husk-loaded trucks, chickens and cattle brought into the city. He said the CDGK had also increased the lease fee by a huge percentage and increased the commercialisation fee by a hundred per cent.

Mr Khan said the previous city government had initiated the work on historic development and construction projects, and the current city government was taking the credit for it.

He said that during his tenure, the 178 union councils of the city were each provided Rs6.4 million annually, and councillors were given Rs1.5 million annually to carry out development work. He added that as a result, development work was carried out across the city, despite the alleged blocking of provincial funds to Karachi.