Karachi Hours after the chief minister’s protest he was not being into confidence over action against corruption in Karachi, paramilitary soldiers detained another senior official of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) from near Civic Centre on Friday night. The Rangers detained for questioning the chief financial officer of the gas utility, Muhammad Amin Rajput, according to Geo News. Two days ago, the law enforcers in plain clothes had held the deputy managing director of the SSGC, Shoaib Warsi, from near the gas utility’s head office, the same day when a former federal minister and close aide of ex-president Asif Zardari, Dr Asim Hussain, was also taken into custody over terror financing charges.
New KMC chief Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, who had been serving as the additional administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), fired his last salvo as the city’s municipal chief on Friday by dismissing 12 ghost employees from service as the Sindh government finally made a regular appointment on the post. Sajjad Abbasi was appointed as the KMC Administrator on Friday, relieving Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui of the additional charge. The newly appointed administrator, Sajjad Abbasi, not only relieved the commissioner he was also handed the additional post of managing director of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board. Hashim Raza Zaidi, who has been serving as the secretary to Sindh ombudsman, had been serving on this post on additional basis. The new KMC chief earlier served as a metropolitan commissioner and also the KWSB’s managing director. The regular appointment of the new KMC had been pending for some time since commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui for the past several weeks had been looking after the important civic post on additional basis. For the past three months, the post of KMC administrator had proved to be revolving door for a myriad of officials who came and went. After the abrupt departure of former KMC Administrator Saqib Soomro to London in July fearing corruption charges, the post remained vacant for quite some time before Roshan Ali Shaikh given its additional charge between June 25 and 26. However, he could not take charge till July since there were reports of some technical issues in the notification issued by the Chief Secretary Muhammad Siddique Memon and objections by the former local government Sharjeel Inam Memon. Shaikh had been serving as the managing director of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board and remained the additional KMC Administrator for less than two weeks before the provincial government issued orders for his removal and brought in the commissioner to take additional charge of the post once again in the first week of July. Then on July 22, additional chief secretary of the provincial government’s planning and development department, Mohammad Waseem was offered the post. However, he refused to take additional charge of the KMC and was later offered the post of a senior member of the Sindh Revenue Board. Hence, in effect Siddiqui has retained the charge of additional KMC Administrator since July 8, while simultaneously serving as Commissioner Karachi. Finally on Friday, the Sindh government made a regular appointment on the post and relieved the overburdened commissioner from duties as the KMC chief. However, during his short stint as the chief municipal officer, the commissioner had taken bold steps for ironing out the malpractices inside the metropolitan organisation. His latest salvo in this regard was the dismissal of 12 officials from service on grounds that they were “ghost” employees. The dismissed staffers include five doctors and are officials of grade BPS-17 and upwards in different departments. They include a resident medical officer of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Dr Sajjad Akhtar, besides Dr Faridudin Qureshi, Dr Sarwat Nasir, Dr Farzana Hasan, Senior Registrator Dr Ilyas Khanzada, and Zahid Ali who was a clerk with the charged parking department. Other dismissed staffers include gardeners associated with the parks and horticulture department, Khayyam Ali Khan, Faheem Ahmed Khan, Shahnawaz, Shoaib Iqbal, Muhammad Arif and Muhammad Rafiquddin.
