‘KMC in deep financial crisis due to lack of funds’

Karachi cannot be clean until all of its garbage is lifted and disposed of properly, said Mayor Wasim Akhar on Tuesday.

Speaking as a chief guest at the Clean Karachi Walk organised by Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace at Seaview, Akhtar said around 95 per cent of Karachi residents are drinking contaminated water and getting sick from it which is why most hospitals in the city are in such bad shape.

He added that industrial waste continues to be dumped in the sea, causing local sea food sources to become contaminated with toxic chemicals and the government was not taking any measures to prevent this.

Reiterating his previous statements, the mayor said the Sindh government is keeping all institutions under its control and he has been given no responsibilities, no resources and no funds. Akhtar said that the local government was working but with a lot of handicaps.

“Because of non-availability of funds, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation is in a deep financial crisis and has no resources to even generate funds of its own,” he claimed. “It is unfortunate that being the economic hub of the country, Karachi generates the highest revenue, but gets nothing in return,” he added.

Scores of people, including schoolchildren and college students, city officials and politicians, participated in the walk carrying placards and signs for a clean environment. They demanded that the government provide clean drinking water to citizens and lift the garbage from the city streets.

The participants stressed that it was imperative now that all citizens and administrative authorities join together to reclaim the city as our own and restore it to its initial status as one of the cleanest cities of Asia. “This walk was arranged to emphasise the roles each one of us could play to reduce and reuse garbage and how to safely dispose it, discontinuing the practices that have made Karachi a garbage dump,” read a statement issued by the Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace.