Murtaza Wahab made administrator of Karachi

KARACHI: The Sindh government on Thursday appointed the incumbent Sindh Law and Environment Adviser, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, as the new Administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.

The notification to this effect was issued by the Sindh Local Government Secretary in pursuance of the Sindh Local Government Act-2013. Barrister Wahab has replaced Laeeq Ahmed, who is a senior government servant.

Barrister Wahab will continue to act in his earlier capacity as an Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Law and as the spokesman for the Sindh government. The portfolios of Environment and Coastal Development have been withdrawn from him in the latest round of changes in the Sindh cabinet.

“It is an honour for me and my entire family and Inshallah I will do my best to serve Karachi,” wrote the new Karachi Administrator in his tweet. Appointment of Barrister Wahab as the new city’s Administrator had been on the cards for sometime as the opposition political parties, especially Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), bitterly criticised the possible move of the Sindh government.

While reacting to the appointment, the Leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Shaikh, belonging to the PTI, said the Sindh government had breached the understanding it had earlier reached with the federal government and other concerned stakeholders that a non-political person should be appointed as the administrator of the provincial capital. Haleem said it was decided that an ‘apolitical administrator of the country’s biggest city would be appointed after discussions between the federal and provincial governments, and other stakeholders.

“By breaking the agreement, the Pakistan People’s Party has given a clear message that it has nothing to do with the development of Karachi,” he said. He said the appointment of Barrister Wahab as the new KMC Administrator had proven the anti-Karachi posture of the PPP’s Sindh government. He claimed that the people of Karachi had already rejected Murtaza Wahab and in his place an honest bureaucrat, enjoying good reputation, should be appointed as the new administrator of Karachi.

He said Karachi’s residents have already rejected Wahab as a PPP candidate from a constituency of South in 2018 general polls by voting in faovur of the PTI’s candidate. “The responsibility of running the city’s affairs has been given to a ‘rejected’ person,” he said. “By appointing Wahab as the administrator, he has been given a toy to play with a multi-billion rupee fund but the PTI will not allow the PPP to destroy the metropolis,” he said.