Efforts on to empower LGs, but not at Sindh govt’s expense: Murtaza Wahab

Karachi Administrator Barrister Murtaza Wahab said on Wednesday that efforts are under way to empower the local government. However, he clarified, the empowerment of the LG system will not be carried out at the expense of the Sindh government.

Wahab, who is also the provincial government’s spokesman and the chief minister’s law adviser, was addressing a gathering at the Frere Hall, where a luncheon was held in honour of the senior officers being trained at the National Institute of Management (NIM).

He said that in the recently passed LG law, the mayor has been empowered. He also said that the supervision of solid waste management and the collection of property tax will make local bodies financially stable in accordance with the new law.

He pointed out that the main problem of all the local bodies is that 95 per cent of their resources are used to pay salaries and pensions. “Article 140-A [of the constitution] is widely discussed but no one knows what’s in it. Pervez Musharraf’s LG system has affected the balance between the provincial government’s and the local government’s powers,” said Wahab.

He said Karachi is the focus of the media, and everyone is saying that the city has been destroyed. He pointed out that the main reason for the destruction of Karachi is the commercialisation policy that was introduced in the city. He explained that under the policy, 20 to 22 streets were commercialised by the then Nazim of the city. He said that when the next Nazim came, he also commercialised 18 to 20 roads, and 40 to 45 important roads that were residential were declared commercial.

All this, he explained further, happened between 2003 and 2008. Many citizens of Karachi went to court and challenged the commercialisation policy of the government, he said.

Wahab said that in order to improve the provision of LG services, it is necessary to activate the process of revenue collection, without which no matter how many powers are given, nothing will happen.

He said the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has the power to collect taxes, but it collects only Rs210 million for the whole year while Mumbai collects an annual municipal tax of 21 billion Indian rupees, which amounts to 42 billion Pakistani rupees.

“We had worked out a different strategy for the KMC to collect municipal tax, that is through utility bills. The KMC could have collected an estimated Rs7.2 billion annually, and if even Rs1 billion of it would have been invested in each district, we wouldn’t have had to ask the provincial government or anyone else for money.”

Unfortunately, he lamented, the proposal was politicised. “There were no checks and balances in the 2001 LG system, the consequences of which we have been suffering to this day.”

He said that after the restoration of democracy in 2010, Musharraf’s system was abolished in all the provinces. Even in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in 2013 did not maintain the Musharraf-era LG system.

He also said they are still criticised, even though they started working on bringing reforms to the LG system in 2020 and decided that local governments should have the basic work related to them, while the provincial government should have its own subjects.

“Under this policy, Karachi’s mayor was made the solid waste management board’s chairman to carry out sanitation work in a better way,” the administrator pointed out.

He made the assurance of giving their best to make the LG system comprehensive. However, he clarified, if anyone thinks that the role of the provincial government should be abolished by empowering the LG system, “we don’t agree with that”. He said that every effort is being made to improve the infrastructure, the parks and the highways of Karachi. New buses for the city will arrive from China in a few days, he added.