KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi chapter chief Engr Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has demanded of the Sindh government to ensure early legislation to empower the local government setup in Karachi in accordance with the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s orders and the Article 140-A of the constitution.
Addressing a press conference, he also demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan to remove ‘political administrator’ in Karachi.
He added that there was no excuse or logic for the PPP’s spokesperson to continue running the office of Karachi administrator after announcement of the final date for fresh local government elections in the megacity.
The ECP is responsible for holding peaceful and impartial local government elections, so the commission needs to remove the ‘illegal political administrator’ to ensure transparency, Naeemur Rehman said.
He also demanded of the ECP to get services of the judiciary and federal services officers in order to deploy impartial and unbiased staffers at the polling stations.
The JI leader further said that the local government polls have already been delayed for two and half years, whereas the PPP government in Sindh has postponed the polls thrice to ‘avoid humiliation and fiasco in elections results’ as it is afraid of the JI’s popularity.
He alleged that corruption was rampant in the name of development and road patchwork. He said the PPP government was announcing schemes, not supposed to be materialized as per the past experiences, just to befool voters.
The JI leader demanded of the ECP to take notice of the situation and take appropriate action.
Demanding restoration of administrative and financial powers for the local government setup, the JI leader said that his party would continue the struggle for empowerment of the setup along with its election campaign.
He recalled that the JI had held a 29-day-long sit-in outside the Sindh Assembly building, which was culminated at an agreement between the JI and the PPP. He said that later conspiracies were hatched once again against the local government setup after the Muttahida Qaumi Movement joined hands with the ruling party in the province.
He said that the PPP government spent billions of rupees and six long years to partially construct a 3.8-kilometer Orange Line RBT. He said the project was facilitating a handful of people because of its short length despite consuming billions of rupees.
He continued that the federal government’s Green Line Project was also cut short instead of completing it as per its design.
In this backdrop, the PPP government has initiated the Red Line Project that is supposed to facilitate some 25,000 people on daily basis.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022