Karachi
Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan, the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, warned on Friday that there could be an outbreak of riots in the province if the crisis of water shortage, especially in its urban areas, remained unresolved.
Speaking at a press conference, Hassan said the Sindh government had completely failed in addressing the water crisis in the province.
“The residents of Karachi have been facing a water shortage crisis for the last one year and situation is worsening,” he added.
He said the Sindh government had announced that it would supply water to the residents of Karachi through a free water tankers but this service had apparently increased corruption.
He said despite the total expenditure of over Rs6 billion by the provincial government, the issue of water crisis was still persisting in Karachi.
The opposition leader said the residents of Karachi, unable to cope with the problem any longer, might resort to rioting if the crisis was not addressed.
He said the Sindh government would be responsible if there would be an outbreak of violence and rioting in the city on the issue.
He added that his party had lost its confidence in the Sindh government and its inefficient ministers.
He said being the opposition leader in the assembly he had written a letter to chief minister informing him about water supply situation in the city. However, he added, the chief minister never responded to such correspondences.
He said the meetings of his party’s delegation with the chief minister had not yielded any fruitful results either.
“The chief minister lacked the authority to rule the province as there were several de facto chief ministers in the province,” he noted. “The ministers too are inefficient and incapable of resolving civic issues.”
He said the annual intermediate examinations were taking place these days and candidates had to appear in them in the midst of power outages and water shortage.
He added that the examination centres did not even have bathrooms and drinking water facilities.
He said his party had approached the National Accountability Bureau and Rangers to take cognisance of the corruption taking place on account of the water supply issue in the city. He said letters were also being written to the governor and the Karachi corps commander to inform them about the crisis.
He alleged that corruption to the tune of Rs200 billion under the head of water supply matters had went unnoticed.
Hassan said that he felt sympathetic towards the incumbent provincial local government minister as he had been discharging his duties with the best of intentions. He added that the previous local government minister was involved in massive-scale corruption.
He appealed to the opposition leader in the National Assembly, Khursheed Ahmed Shah of the Pakistan People’s Party, to look into the mismanagement and maladministration rampant under his party’s rule in the province at a time when he was leading the campaign against the prime minister on the Panama leaks scandal.
Shadow budget
Syed Sardar Ahmed, the MQM parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly, announced on the occasion that his party would present a shadow budget for the upcoming financial year 2016-17 on May 15.
He said the shadow budget would include no new taxes for the public in view of the price hike of essential commodities and unemployment. He added that the MQM budget would be pro-poor and pro-public.