Mayoral office empowered through latest LG bill: Ghani

KARACHI: The Karachi’s mayoral office has been empowered through the latest legislation passed by the Sindh Assembly by making the mayor the chairman of the Solid Waste Management Agency to be established in the city and also elevating him as the co-chair of Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB).

This was stated by Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday.The minister said the local government minister had retained the office of KWSB chairman while Karachi’s mayor becomes its co-chair as the provincial government had to perform a role with regard to the city’s water utility due to its various projects financed by the international donor agencies.

He said Karachi’s mayor would chair the incoming city’s solid waste management body in the backdrop that the former mayor used to say that he didn’t have the powers even to collect waste of the city.

He said the latest amendment bill passed by the Sindh Assembly had given more administrative and financial powers to different municipal agencies in the province as compared to the authority given to the local bodies under the Sindh Local Government Act-2013.

He said the latest Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill-2021 had given supervisory role to the municipal agencies over the working of 10 departments of the provincial government.

He said it was unduly claimed by the opposition in the province that authority to issue birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates had been taken back from the municipal agencies in the province.

He said the Sindh government through the new amendment bill had only sorted out the anomaly that both the district municipal corporations and unions committees had been empowered to issue these certificates as after passage of the latest legislation, the UCs would continue to perform this function. He said the Sindh government had also given tax collection powers to the towns to be established in the cities.