KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information & Labour Saeed Ghani has said that Mayor Waseem Akhtar is responsible for the destruction caused across the city whereas PTI leader Ali Zaidi has dumped the garbage of stormwater drains in the parks and open places of the city adding that it had multiplied the miseries of the people of the city.
He said this while inaugurating the annual urs celebrations of Hazrat Syed Abdullah Shah Ghazi along Minister for Local Government, Religious Affairs and Forest Department Syed Nasir Hussain Shah on Thursday. The annual urs of the holy saint is being celebrated in a befitting matter under the administrative control of the Government of Sindh’s Auqaf Department. The urs celebrations will be continued from 20th to 22nd Zil-Hajj 1440 Hijri i.e. 22nd to August 24, 2019.
In an apparent reaction, both ministers said that Sindh government led by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) fully owned Karachi and doing development works because the city is the major contributor of revenue to the national exchequer.
Ghani said that the government of Sindh has disposed of 46,000 tonnes of waste after Eid-ul-Azha.
He lamented that the Karachi Mayor did not tell Ali Zaidi to refrain from openly dumping waste being collected from stormwater drains during their de-silting under the federal government-backed clean Karachi campaign and added that the mayor is claiming he did not have any power yet the fact is that the mayor has 80 per cent of the power to lift the garbage in city and is 100 per cent responsible for cleaning stormwater drains.
Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah while talking to the media on this occasion said that all parks and grounds that were encroached across the city in the reign of the previous government of MQM is responsible for the destruction of the city.
“Now a new MQM has been constituted as a result of “Thakur Sahib” but the city is facing the problems as a result of their Bhatta Khori, China cutting their cruelties at that time,” he said while adding that organisations and departments like KDA, KMC, Water Board which were profitable before 2005 are now facing a deficit because of MQM’s embezzlement of funds of these departments.
“This corruption was and is also the reason for their arguments. Many things are to be revealed in the days to come,” Ghani claimed.
“The Sindh government has always supported these organisations by giving them billions of funds under the heads of utilities, salaries and other development works. In the previous year, Sindh gave Rs55 crore for cleaning stormwater,” he further claimed.
The minister said that if the cleaning had been done in a proper way the situation would not have been so bad during this year rains. He said that the Sindh Chief Minister has already ordered an inquiry to probe into this matter that where the funds have been spending, he concluded.
Both leaders laid a chaddar and wreath of flowers on the mazar sharif and offered fateha as well.
