KARACHI: Reacting to Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar’s recent criticism of the Sindh government, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Saturday said that those who believed in serving the people worked to deliver instead of making ‘tall claims’.

In a statement issued by CM House, Mr Shah referred to the press conference addressed by the mayor on Friday about the performance of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation on the completion of its 100-day cleanliness drive. Mr Akhtar had announced that he would move the Supreme Court to get full mayoral powers, which had been denied to him under the existing local government law.

“[The press conference] was a manifestation of his failure to serve the people of this city,” said the chief minister. He added: “I think he is confused. This is termed one’s inability to understand the requirement of one’s job and nature of [the] job.”

The chief minister said when the mayor failed to perform in his 100-day drive he felt it fit to put the onus of his failure on the Sindh government.

“This was the only way out he had,” said Mr Shah.

A spokesperson in CM House said that apart from paying OZT [Octroi Zila Tax] share to KMC, the government paid Rs500 million to the municipality every month to pay salaries to the `uncountable employees they have stuffed’.

“The government has also given Rs5bn to KMC for repairs and maintenance of roads.

“In principle, the mayor should have concentrated on the payroll of KMC and made a plan to rationalise it. He should have focused on identifying ghost employees and their removal; and audited the pension account to stop leakages.

“The mayor should have worked to explore ways and means to improve the KMC resources but sorry to say, he kept crying for 99 days of his drive and worked only for a day and that also for a photo session to launch the cleanliness drive.”

The statement claimed that the mayor had all the powers he should have, but instead of making best utilisation of his `functions’ to serve the city and its people, “he is beating about the bush because he lacks the vision and the will to serve the people.

“The powers for turning amenity plots into commercial and residential [purposes] and then selling them in broad daylight; the powers to construct unauthorised marriage halls on government land and the authority to allow illegal settlements on the banks of storm-water drains; and the powers to make people of the city ‘hijacked’ cannot be given to anyone at any cost.

“We have restored peace to the city after huge sacrifices by the Rangers and police and now nobody would be allowed to destroy it on one or the other pretext,” said the chief minister.

“If you [mayor] really want to work, you have great opportunity and space for the purpose and the government would be supporting you.”

Over the mayor’s statement that the government had a plan to defeat him in the next election, the statement said winning election depended on one’s performance. Mr Shah added: “People of Karachi know well who serves them, who respects them and who understands their problems and strives to resolve them.”

According to the statement, the mayor in a meeting with the chief minister was advised to prepare development schemes and get funds from the government but he brought a simple list of schemes to get funds.

The statement added that the Sindh government supported the mayor and advised him thus: “When you would work selflessly, you would have no time to shed [crocodile] tears.”

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2017