City Nazim Naimatullah Khan on Saturday said that the city government, despite confronting major obstacles since its inception has put the Karachi on the path to development and progress and vowed to work for its betterment in future. Addressing members of the Karachi City Council while presenting draft budget of the city government for fiscal year 2005-06, he claimed of doing record development works in last three and a half years, which are unmatchable in the history of metropolis.
"When I took over as Nazim, infrastructure of the city was ruined with dilapidated roads, broken sewerage and water lines and worse law and order situation, depicting very negative perception of Karachi, he added.
But by the grace of Allah and efforts of all local government representatives, Naimat said, Karachi has been turned into a developed city with improved law and order situation and marvellous development works undertaken by present city government.
Giving the reason for carrying out development work, he maintained that he took the task to develop the city because he thought that Karachi is his benefactor and appealed to all, who came here and became prosperous to contribute in its development with the same spirit. Comparing Karachi with Lahore, the City Nazim felt people of Lahore own their city and functionaries from government to chief minister and to Nazim of Lahore are dedicated to the development of their city.
Unfortunately, he deplored, this is lacking in Karachi where sense of ownership seems nowhere. "There are many people who staked their claim to be representatives of the city but have hardly done anything towards its development.
"Instead of being happy to see the development works in metropolis and help, they are creating huddles in the way of city government," he said and revealed that a provincial minister has directed to stop the provincial share of Tameer-e-Karachi Programme, which is underway to upgrade infrastructure of city.
He told that the minister is now saying that these funds would be utilised though MNAs and MPAs.
"What is their job in the development work. They are in assemblies for legislation. Development is our job and we had proved it by excellent work during the last few years," he questioned.
Referring to desalination and sewerage water treatment plants for which agreements have been signed, Naimatullah Khan stated: "Why these people, who remained mayor of the city and part of provincial and federal governments did not take up such plans when they knew that water and sewerage problems persisted in city."
He declared that he would contest next local government elections and would be serving the city with the same spirit in days to come.
About the draft budget for fiscal 2005-06, he informed that outlay of this budget is Rs 42.791 billion, which is much higher than what it used to be during the defunct KMC's budget of Rs 6 billion.
The city government had presented Rs 22 billion budget in its first year, Rs 27 billion in second year and Rs 32 billion in last year.
He said major chunk of funds has been set aside for development works, education and health, which would bring significant changes in these sector in coming days.
The Nazim said another aspect of gradual increase in the city government budget is quite significant that no new taxes have been levied but the proportion of development funds increased over the years.
He disputed the propaganda of opponents of the city government that the present city government came in power because of their boycott of the last local government elections, adding that there is no truth in their claims as recent Jamaat-i-Islami backed candidate emerged victorious in Malir town Nazim and Site UC Nazim elections in recent days. Later, in a press briefing, the City Nazim gave overview of the draft budget for the fiscal year 2005-06 to newsmen and thanked the print and electronic media of city of highlighting the achievements of the city government.