Fire brigade staffers get Rs19.4m in fire risk allowance

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) fire brigade employees have been paid Rs19.4 million as the fire risk allowance.

Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar has requested Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to provide the corporation with funds for increasing 15 per cent salaries of the KMC employees and officers.

While addressing the finance department officers on Tuesday, Akhtar the fire fighters were heroes who saved the life and property of the people in this city by putting their own lives at stake.

“Giving the allowance to the firefighters is in our priority list and we would be paying them whenever we have sufficient funds.”

The mayor said that the KMC revenue had decreased even more during the lockdown, which was adding to the miseries of the corporation. “The funds we get from the Sindh government are not enough to pay the salaries and pensions of 13,000 current and retired employees.”

The mayor said he had written many letters to the provincial government, but to no avail. He directed the finance department to prepare the budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 and keep the non-development budget as low as possible so that the money could be spent on the uplift of the city.

Responding to the news that the Sindh government was unlikely to give Karachi new development schemes in the upcoming budget, Akhtar said this showed the Pakistan Peoples Party’s enmity towards Karachi. “Neglecting a city with a population of 30 million will create differences between the people of the urban and rural areas of Sindh,” he warned.

Akhtar said that Karachi was the biggest city and the economic hub of Pakistan that contributed a major chunk not only in the economy of Sindh but the country’s economy as well. The people of Karachi paid more taxes than any other city, but in return neither it got development schemes nor were its institutions given due funds.

“The local bodies in Sindh are already powerless and now the provincial government is making it clear that it has nothing to do with Karachi by not giving any uplift scheme to the city,” the mayor said.

He was of the view that they were well aware of the employees’ issues and would keep taking all-out measures to resolve them. He added that he had also written a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan and requested him to pay the KMC Rs3.5 billion so that the dues of the employees retired between 2016 and 2020 could be released.