Mayor hands over job letters to heirs of 96 deceased employees

Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar handed over appointment letters to heirs of 96 deceased employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) during a ceremony on Wednesday.

Deputy Mayor Dr Arshad Abdullah Vohra, Municipal Commissioner Hanif Mohammad, Financial Adviser Khalid Mehmood, Sr. Director Human Resources Management Jamil Farooqui and other officers were also present on this occasion.

The heirs of the deceased employees were given jobs in various KMC departments, including parks & horticulture, CSR, Katchi Abadis, estate, finance & accounts, engineering, land, law, fire brigade and MPH.

The mayor congratulated the heirs on getting the appointment letters and expressed the hope that they would perform their duties honestly and by working hard to set an example for other employees.

He said the issuance of such appointment letters had been neglected in the past as the administrators appointed by government had given jobs to only thousands of contract workers and never thought about the problems facing by families of those who served the KMC and passed away.

Akhtar said these jobs were given on the basis of merit without any discrimination of cast or creed, language or religion.  He said that those heirs who did not get their appointment letters should apply for them and they would also be given jobs after completing all codal formalities.

Akhtar won the mayor’s election on August 24 last year. He took the oath in a park in September after being transported there from his prison cell for the occasion. “There are a lot of issues in the city, but with full determination and motivation, we will resolve all of them,” he said at his inauguration. “I will seek my freedom from the court. Otherwise, I will run the city by setting up an office in my prison cell.”

He was later granted bail in the 39 cases registered against him and released from jail in November last year. Karachi had last had a mayor in the year 2010. Elections were not held again until late last year because of wrangling over power-sharing. The port city’s residents, estimated to be around 22 million, badly need an empowered mayor to address civic problems.