PPP chairman wants Karachi towns, UCs empowered, says Ghani

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has issued special directions to the Sindh government to facilitate and empower the towns and union committees in Karachi so that they can serve the residents of the city in the best possible manner.

Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, who also heads the Karachi chapter of the PPP, stated this on Friday while chairing a meeting attended by the chairmen of 13 towns of Karachi.

The meeting was also attended by Sindh PPP General Secretary Waqar Mehdi, Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab and Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister Najmi Alam.

Ghani said all the town chairmen should remain in constant contact with their vice-chairmen, union committee chairmen and vice-chairmen, and councillors in their respective municipal jurisdictions in the city.

He said the Sindh government had ensured the regular payment of octroi zilla tax (OZT) to different municipal agencies and this would financially strengthen them to pay salaries to all their staffers and disburse pensions to their retired employees.

Every town in Karachi had to act to resolve the complaints forwarded to it by all the elected local government representatives in its jurisdiction up to the level of councilor, Ghani said.

Mehdi informed the meeting that the Sindh PPP president had directed all the chairmen of municipal agencies belonging to the PPP in the province to submit to him their performance reports. He said the same reports would be used to question the PPP’s town chairmen in Karachi about their performances next month. He said a compliance report in this regard would then be compiled and forwarded to the PPP chairman.

The PPP chairman had issued directions to the party’s elected representatives and organisational set-up of the PPP to enhance their mutual relations so that the people of Karachi should be served in the best possible manner, Mehdi said.

The Karachi mayor said he would try his best to improve ties between every town and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation. He said that in this regard, meetings would be held soon with every town to assist them in resolving their issues.

“We own all 25 towns in Karachi as we take along with us every town,” he said. He added that the civic agencies, including the Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation and Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, would be taken aboard in this regard. “We work to achieve the sole purpose of making Karachi the city of lights again by resolving all its issues,” the mayor remarked.