‘Everyone wants to rule Karachi but not fix its problems’

KARACHI: An opposition legislator complained in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday that everybody is determined to rule over Karachi but nobody is serious about fixing the problems of the provincial capital.

Participating in the pre-budget discussion in the House, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan lawmaker Mangla Sharma said Karachi has been reduced to ruins owing to the indifference of the rulers. She lamented the situation that work on the Safe City project in Karachi has been pending for the past six years.

Grand Democratic Alliance MPA Nusrat Sehar Abbasi claimed that the provincial government is ineligible, incompetent and corrupt. She also claimed that corruption has become so rampant in Sindh’s governance that corrupt practices are taking place in every department of the provincial government.

She said Sindh has been ruined because, according to her, certain corrupt mafias have been backing the provincial government. The opposition legislator said that only mafias have been ruling in the province.

PA Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani advised her to move the court if she has enough evidence to prove her allegations against the rulers of the province. He denied further opportunity to the MPA to address the House.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf legislator Shahzad Qureshi claimed that 26,000 public schools in the province do not have the facility of potable water. He said the public health sector of the province is being managed through the private sector.

He claimed before the legislature that the federal government will complete the Green Line section of the Bus Rapid Transit System project by August this year.

Former Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said the provincial government is fully accountable for its expenses in every Tehsil and district of the province.

He said that a record number of jobs were provided to the people in the province during his tenure. He also said medical colleges and universities were built in various districts of the province.

Shah said the Sindh government has fulfilled the dream of extracting coal reserves in Thar for electricity production. He said a modern hospital has been built in Mithi.

PPP lawmaker Shamim Mumtaz pointed out that if the claim that Sindh had been ruined were true, what was making so many people come to the province from upcountry for employment.