Ghani welcomes Centre’s help for city

Responding to Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi’s announcement of launching a clean-up campaign in Karachi, Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani on Saturday welcomed the move.

Addressing a news conference, Ghani said that it is good that the federal government has expressed its intention to do something for the people of the city. He assured the Centre that the Sindh government will extend every kind of help to the drive that starts on Sunday (today).

“But it seems that the Nafees allies of the [federal] government have not fulfilled their obligations, as that is why Ali Zaidi sahib has come here to help them out,” the LG minister said in an apparent reference to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

“The KMC [Karachi Metropolitan Corporation] and DMCs [district municipal corporations] have not been able to complete their sanitation work, as perhaps Ali Zaidi has come here to help them out.”

Ghani said the federal minister had claimed that Karachi will be cleaned in 10 days, adding that if this really happens, then nothing will be better than this.

“Ali Zaidi invited me to attend the meeting [about the clean-up campaign] via Twitter, as this shows how serious he is. I telephoned Ali Zaidi but he didn’t respond, as he feels that he needs more help from the cantonments and the FWO [Frontier Works Organisation].”

The minister for local government added that “Karachi belongs to all of us, and the Sindh government is ready to sit with everyone for that purpose.”

‘Parachute entry’

Addressing the same news conference, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah’s law and information adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab said the provincial government had launched a clean-up campaign in Karachi some four weeks ago, and the deputy commissioners posted in the city’s six districts had been carrying out this task.

“The federal government, through its parachute-like entry in the city, has spoiled the [provincial government’s] coordination for the cleanliness campaign,” claimed Wahab. He said the Sindh government had been carrying out mega development projects in Zaidi’s electoral constituency in Karachi.

“Everyone needs to sit together to work in the best interest of the people of Karachi,” said the adviser. He said the Sindh government had signed a memorandum of understanding to use the municipal waste generated in the city to produce electricity, adding that work on this project is being carried out at a rapid pace.