Non-local officials have worsened civic issues, says MQM-Pakistan

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leaders on Saturday claimed the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) provincial government has been posting incompetent and corrupt officials from interior Sindh to urban centres to mint money from their residents.

Addressing a news conference, they pointed out that because of the PPP government’s unfamiliarity with the civic issues and their inability to resolve them, civic problems in the city have been worsening.

Khawaja Izharul Hasan and Muhammad Hussain said that “the biased PPP’s enmity with the MQM-P is understandable, but enmity with the people of the province’s urban centres is beyond comprehension”.

“Provincial minister Sharjeel Memon says there’s no water in the Hub Dam, but today the Hub Dam is full, but still the residents of Karachi are longing for a drop of water,” said Hasan.

He said that the managing director of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board is not willing to receive the phone calls of the public representatives elected from the city.

He also said that the local government system has been abolished since August 31 last year. “Administrators have been posted, but what is their performance in the duration of 10 months,” he asked, saying that the Sindh advocate general in a recent report termed all the administrators and deputy commissioners ignorant.

Hasan said the Sindh government plans to take four hospitals from the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation. “But the provincial government has not built a model hospital in its 13-year rule where Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari or provincial ministers are provided treatment.”

As for Hussain, he pointed out that residential and commercial buildings in Karachi are being demolished on the Supreme Court’s orders, but the apex court’s other orders are being ignored completely. “The MQM-P demands that alternatives be provided to the ‘victims’ before implementing the court’s decisions.”