PM asked to work with Murad for city’s sake

Unleashing his anger over Prime Minister Imran Khan ignoring Karachi’s civic issues, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman Mustafa Kamal said the premier should set aside his ego and talk to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to devise a strategy to address the problems being faced by the residents of the city.

“When Pakistani premier could talk to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, why he cannot talk to the Sindh chief minister.” Kamal was addressing a press conference at the Pakistan House, the party’s secretariat, in the presence of a large number of people. The PSP chief on the occasion claimed that over 800 workers from various political parties were to join his party.

“Imran Khan is not the prime minister of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [PTI] but he is the prime minister of Pakistan,” Kamal said. He recalled that the PM had promised a package of Rs162 billion for Karachi but the seriousness of his promise could be gauged from the fact that not even 162 rupees were released for the port city that contributed 70 per cent of revenue to the national exchequer. “Entire province is getting ‘fooled’ by him [PM] in the name of developmental projects,” he said.

He said Pakistan was going through a constitutional crisis as the PTI-led federal government seemed utterly failed to meet the public expectations. Karachi has been facing numerous issues, including poor cleanliness, electrocution incidents, unavailability of anti-rabies vaccine and the rise in dog-bite cases, outbreak of various diseases, and inflation but the PM was not giving his attention to these problems, he said.

“The people have been dying and the entire province has been destroyed. The country cannot be governed on the mood of the prime minister,” the PSP chief said, adding that it was high time that the government took issues of Karachi seriously and found their solutions.

He said the PTI government was introducing a new local government system in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but had ignored Sindh and Balochistan. “Are these provinces not part of Pakistan,” he questioned.

“We have no sympathy with the CM Sindh, but the PM has to speak to him for the sake of the people because after the 18th Amendment, not a single penny can be spent in Sindh without the consent of the provincial government. Everything is in the hands of the CM,” Kamal remarked.

He said the provincial government should not be responsible for disposing of garbage and these powers should be devolved to the municipal governments.