Ghani ready to pay ‘Rs550 per km’ for chopper ride across Sindh

KARACHI: Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has said that he will talk to his political fellows belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to avail helicopter service to tour all areas of Sindh, and he is willing to pay a higher rate of “Rs 550 per kilometre if the rate of Rs55 [per kilometer] is not offered to him”.

“I will be required to visit all areas of Sindh to inspect their municipal affairs, so going by road would be a time-consuming and expensive proposition. So I would talk to my friends in PTI to get the helicopter service as I’m ready to avail the chopper service at the higher rate of Rs 550 [per kilometer] if it is not available at the rate of Rs55 [per kilometer] as this will make my work easier,” he said while talking to newsmen on Wednesday during his visit to Clifton’s Block-7.

The minister stated this in a lighter vein in the context of a statement made by Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry the other day, who had defended the use of a helicopter by Prime Minister Imran Khan for his travels between the Prime Minister House in Islamabad and his private residence in Bani Gala.

Khan had claimed that using the helicopter for such a ride by the prime minister was an economical proposition as he had checked on Google and learnt that the chopper ride cost around Rs55 per kilometre.

To a question, Ghani said that complaints of PTI MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain were justified to a large extent as the new prime minister should not ignore Karachi. He said that whosoever was elected as prime minister or president of the country was under an obligation to visit the mausoleum of the founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi. “But it seems that some problems have been preventing Imran Khan from visiting Karachi since he became the prime minister,” he said. Answering another question, he said Karachi had been facing a number of civic issues, including sanitation, encroachments and unattended municipal waste, and those issues had to be resolved one by one after prioritising them in a proper manner. He said that all the longstanding civic issues of the city could not be resolved in one go.