Chief secretary seeks report on Wasa’s issues

Sindh Chief Secretary Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah has asked the local government secretary and the Hyderabad commissioner to look into the matters of the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and submit a report on the agency’s issues with specific reference to Wasa’s receivables that are to be paid by various client agencies, including the government departments.

The chief secretary has also asked the finance secretary to review the budgeting of Wasa, remove the bottlenecks in the payments of the agency’s charges and arrange a mechanism for payments in collaboration with the local government secretary.

Shah also sought reports to this effect from the aforementioned officers within three days. He was earlier briefed in a presentation on various issues being faced by Wasa due to its large amount of outstanding receivables that had rendered the agency unable to pay salaries and pensions to its employees and release money for development work.

The chief secretary maintained that the supply of clean water must be ensured to all the people living in the province. He stressed the need for preventing water-borne diseases at any cost and suggested that the divisional and district management, in association with the health department, should arrange treatment of such people who fell ill due to polluted water.