Mayor calls for shutting down SSWMB if it is unable to deliver in Karachi

Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar has said it is better to altogether shut down the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) if it lacks the ability to meet its targets related to sanitation work in the city.

“At least, its [SSWMB] officials should be changed,” he said while speaking at a press conference along with Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani and Chairman of District Municipal Corporation Central Rehan Hashmi on Sunday.

The press conference was held after the minister along with the officials concerned visited several parts of the city to supervise offal disposal work during Eidul Azha.

The mayor cited the directives of the apex judiciary that an institution should be closed if it was unable to deliver. He said the helpline of the KMC had been receiving hundreds of complaints regarding bad performance of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board. “But it seems that all its officials and personnel have been away due to the Eid holidays while sewage overflow does take place on roads in several areas,” he said.

Akhtar said that the SSWMB was not under his administrative control as it was being run by the Sindh government, which should improve its working.

Ghani said the mayor had reservations about the working of the SSWMB as he had also expressed them earlier. “But the closure of institutions serves no purpose at all as the Sindh government has been utilising all its resources to improve working of these agencies.”

The minister said the relevant officials were being taken to task in order to resolve civic issues of the city. He acknowledged that at certain places of the city the SSWMB had been unable to make adequate arrangements beforehand, and that caused problems on the occasion of Eidul Azha.

He said the offal disposal operation on the first day of the Eid should have been completed by 8pm but it continued till late at night. He welcomed the move of the federal government to assign the task of the cleaning of drains in the city to the FWO and the NDMA.