What revenue sources does local govt law grant KMC, asks mayor

Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar has asked the Sindh advocate general to read the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 to know what revenue sources were available to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).

He was talking to media persons after appearing in the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday morning at the hearing of a case pertaining to financial disputes between the KMC and K-Electric (KE)

The mayor lamented that the Sindh government had kept all the sources of revenue to itself but at the same time it wanted the KMC to generate its own revenue.

The advocate general, he said, should better suggest to the Sindh government to stop corruption and start spending the revenue it generated from Karachi.

The mayor informed the media that the local government secretary would meet him later in the day on court directives. “We will inform him about all our financial position and the controversy on the payment of K-Electric dues and then we will see what decision he takes on this,” he said.

He maintained that the KMC could not generate enough revenue due to which the shortfall in funds for the payment of salaries and pensions had increased from Rs70 million to Rs120 million.

According to the mayor, the dues of the KE to be paid by the KMC were now less than two billion after the reconciliation; however, the power utility also had to pay Rs7 billion to the KMC in land utilisation charges from 1982 to 1998.