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Thursday March 28, 2024

Sindh governor sees 80pc improvement in Karachi law and order

By Azeem Samar
March 19, 2017

Breakfast with Jang

Says MQM’s disintegration has created a political vacuum for other political parties;
federal govt funding a number of economic initiatives in Sindh to build and improve

civic infrastructure; federal govt going to put more funds in Sindh than any other province

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair has said that the people of Karachi could not be left disenfranchised to the extent that they would start believing that nobody was available to patronise them as there was only one political party in the past, which had an understanding and sense of their sufferings. 

The Sindh governor said this while speaking at the “Breakfast with Jang” session here at a hotel on Saturday. The governor, while speaking on the theme “Governance goals for Sindh”, was commenting on the evolving political situation of Karachi in the aftermath of Muttahida Quami Movement’s disintegration.

“It has become an important aspect that they (people of Karachi) should not feel that no other political party is concerned about them. We are obviously very concerned and I am sure all political parties are equally concerned for them,” the governor said. “The sort of political vacuum created after a gap of 30 years provides a big opportunity to several political parties to make inroads and capitalise on new political landscape of Karachi. MQM was the most popular political party of Karachi and of urban Sindh in the past 30 years. There is no denying to it, but the challenge, which has now surfaced after the breakdown of the party into two to three factions, should not be merely utilised to capture political space.”

He said that the situation of forthcoming general elections in Karachi was unknown as nobody knew what would happen and which political party would be able to take advantage of the present situation. He said that the people of Karachi should become the main beneficiaries of the process of development of their city. 

The governor said that the law and order situation in the city had improved to the extent that nobody had been left with the ability to make Karachi hostage. “It is a big sea change; even if we desire, we could not shut Karachi, could not do target killings, or extort money.”

He said that all relevant data on crime incidents would confirm up to 80 percent improvement in law and order situation of the city. He said that there was a time when Karachi had been described as one of the dangerous cities in the world. “The city was considered dangerous due to crime instances and extreme lack of governance. It happened nowhere in the world that a city, which is considered the financial hub of a country, could be shut down on notice of just 10 minutes. It happened for decades. If we go back to the 90s, we will find out that the crimes of the same nature have been occurring here,” he said.

He said that Karachi had been in the grip of extremely inappropriate governance as there was no control available except the control of a single political party. “Followers of that political party were in millions who were the genuine supporters as they were under the grip (of the party) but there was no grip on law and order though the party had remained part of the government,” he said.

Zubair said this political movement, which had been launched for securing due share of jobs for the people of Karachi in the public sector, had used unfair means to achieve its objectives; although the movement had been founded for a good cause. 

“Hundreds of thousands of jobs generated in the private sector were sacrificed at that time for a few thousand jobs of public sector,” he said. The governor said that the political movement, which was launched in the mid 80s, caused worsening of law and order situation to the extent that the business community of the city had been forced to move out, either to invest elsewhere in the country or to migrate to do business in any other country. “This situation stopped creation of job opportunities and further expansion of industries." He said that contribution of Karachi in economic growth of the country in the first 40 years of its existence had been phenomenal as it was the private sector, which had led economic growth in the city.

Regarding governance issues for the rest of the province, the governor said that there was no other province in the country having urban-rural divide on such massive scale as Sindh. “The urban-rural divide in Sindh was due to a number of factors, including language, culture, and ethnicity,” he said.

He said the economic development of Sindh was a big challenge given the situation that this urban-rural divide had been widening for successive decades. He said the best method to prevent further widening of this gap was to think other areas of Sindh as part of a major economic opportunity belt. “In this belt, a number of projects of power sector, road network, and industrialisation have to be carried out in connection with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor,” he urged.

He said the federal government had been funding a number of economic initiatives in Sindh to build and improve the civic infrastructure in the province, foremost among these projects included Green Line Rapid Bus Service for providing modern mass transit facility to the people of Karachi and K-IV bulk water supply scheme for the city.

He said the federal govt would also provide funding for projects to develop and upgrade infrastructure required for attracting investment. “We are going to show that the federal govt is going to put more resources and more funds in Sindh than any other province and that is going to happen over and above the due share of the province under the Federal Divisible Pool,” said the governor.

He said the development projects in the province, which were being constructed through federal funding, belonged to such sectors that were primarily not the responsibility of the Centre after 18th Constitutional Amendment. He said that there was a need to showcase the prospects and opportunities Karachi offered for investment to the rest of the world, owing to the transformation it had gone through in the last three years.

Speaking about the arrest and release of Farooq Sattar, the Sindh governor took a sigh of relief that leader of MQM Pakistan Dr Farooq Sattar had been arrested and later released in the city last night. Otherwise, the governor said he would have to face embarrassment while appearing before audience of the programme in case Dr Sattar had remained under arrest.

“This shows well that your system has mechanism to react and to take due corrective measures within the shortest-possible time. That mechanism allowed us to contain the situation and to do damage control. This is altogether a separate debate as how and why it happened,” he said.

“The good thing is that damage control has been done in this case and most importantly there should be mechanism in your system to react and to keep intact coordination among the major stakeholders,” said the governor.

Earlier, Jang Group's Syed Sarmad Ali said that the Jang Group would continue to invite eminent persons from various walks of life in its upcoming breakfast sessions as audience of these sessions were able to learn a lot from experiences and views of guest speakers.