Kamal seeks administrative, financial autonomy for major cities

Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman Mustafa Kamal on Saturday demanded administrative and financial autonomy for Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad. He said Karachi alone can accumulate Rs18 trillion if given the right to self-governance, and granting this to all the major cities can steer Pakistan out of the economic crisis.

Kamal was speaking at a general workers convention of the PSP in PECHS. Other speakers included the party’s central president, Anis Kaimkhani, and the organisational chief for Karachi, Asif Hasnain.

The PSP chief said the provinces should have equal representation in the National Assembly like they have in the Senate to solve the current problems faced by the country.

He said that instead of redressing public woes, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) are sowing ethnic hatred among the people by trading barbs over the demand for the division of Sindh.

“They have been defrauding people and telling lies for the past 30 years. The PPP swears at Mohajirs, of which the MQM-P takes advantage and provokes Mohajirs against Sindhis. The PPP does the same in interior Sindh and incites people against Mohajirs, saying that they want to break the province.”

Kamal said that the country is facing an acute crisis, and that it has no budget of its own but the one given by the International Monetary Fund. “Our finance minister will only read that out in the assembly.”

He warned that the country will be facing more crises in the coming days. “The subsidies on gas and electricity will vanish. The recent inflation is just a trailer; the film is yet to be screened.”

He said that contrary to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) claim of bringing back the looted money to the country, there is no chance of a single penny returning. “The prime minister should at least stop the money flowing out of the country [during his government].”

The PSP chief said Pakistan is always faced with a deficit budget, and to stop it the government must balance the revenue and expenditures. He added that the world will not always be handing out loans to the country.

He said that the former finance minister had proposed a ban on the import of certain things that could save the country 20 to 25 billion dollars, but then the members of the central cabinet opposed it because it hurt their businesses. He said tax collection in the PTI government has dropped by Rs700 billion because if its policies.

July 21 rally

Kamal said that the people have rejected the rallies of the PPP and the MQM-P, and that the PSP is the only party left in the country to play the role of the opposition, adds our correspondent.

“Both parties have been using the ethnic card for their dirty politics and fooling Sindhis and Mohajirs,” he said, adding that the PSP will hold its public meeting at Karachi’s Bagh-e-Jinnah on July 21 and will prove that the people have rejected the politics of change and ethnicity.