‘Financial resources of Karachi’s local bodies plundered by city govt between 2005 and 2009’

Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has called for accountability of the local bodies of Karachi as he has claimed that during the city district government system from 2001 to 2005, which is now defunct, the financial position of the local bodies was stable but in the very next tenure that lasted till 2009, those institutions became virtually bankrupt.

Addressing as a chief guest a workshop organised by the Sindh Local Councils Association on Thursday, the local government minister said one should know who had embezzled the money in the exchequer of the municipal agencies of Karachi.

He said that embezzlement, which had taken place in the second tenure of the City District Government Karachi, caused the city’s municipal agencies to go bankrupt.

He continued with the allegation that not only financial resources of the civic agencies were stolen in that period but also encroachments brazenly took place on amenity spaces in the city.

Shah said the financial situation of the municipal agencies of Karachi had now become so dismal that the Sindh government paid Rs450 million every month to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation for the payment of salaries to the municipal staffers in the city.

The local government minister maintained that the Sindh government wanted the existing local governments to complete their lawful term as per their public mandate. He vowed that the Sindh government would do whatever was required to ensure that the next local government elections in the province were held on time without any delay. He claimed that various issues in this regard, especially those related to the delimitation of the constituencies, were being resolved.

Shah said amendments would be incorporated in the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 to empower the local governments in the province so as to enable them to serve the people at grassroots level.

He added that deliberations and recommendations of the event would help the government effectively amend the provincial local government law. The provincial minister expressed his hope that once the local government law was amended in accordance with the recommendations of the workshop, the municipal agencies in Sindh would resolve the basic issues of people in the most effective manner.