Mayor wants SSWMB’s responsibilities handed over to KMC

Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar on Thursday again demanded that the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board be handed over to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) as the latter had miserably failed to achieve its objective.

Addressing media personnel, after examining carpeting work on Teen Hatti and Liaquatabad roads, he said the onus of implementing the SC’s verdict now lay on the provincial government’s shoulders.

He said the KMC carried out its development projects within the limited resources it has, since no funds were being provided to the civic authority, while the mayor was not being empowered either.

“City’s residents are fed up with water shortages and power breakdowns, and want a proper public transport system,” he stated.

A number of people voted for the mayor and are now calling for the developmental works to be completed, but sadly, the development work was going on at a slow pace owing to a shortage of funds.

He said the carpeting work on the Liaquatabad No 10 road would ease the traffic flow. However, he pointed out that despite carpeting roads, encroachers  continued to carry on with their stalls set up on either side of the road.

The traffic flow on Liaquatabad No 10-Teen Hatti artery would improve and the commuters would be facilitated, he added.

Akhtar stated that despite the KMC’s limited resources it was working to deliver the goods. He said encroachments from the entire city were being gradually removed.

The provincial local government, in the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday, questioned the maintainability of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) petition against the constitution of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) and its law, contending that the Supreme Court did not declare the board’s law ultra vires to the constitution.

MQM-P chief Farooq Sattar, Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar and others submitted in their petition that the SSWMB failed to perform its duties of collecting and disposing garbage in the city and instead outsourced its functions to a Chinese firm.

The petitioners submitted that the staff of the district municipal corporations was inducted in the board and handed over to the Chinese firm instead of using the workforce under the existing structure of DMCs present.

Filing comments on the petition regarding implementation of the apex court’s directives on constitution of the waste management board, secretary local government submitted that the petition was not maintainable in connection with the SC declaring to have the board dissolved since the provincial government had filed a review application with the SC to extend the SSWMB’s dissolution.