The City Council on Tuesday approved a resolution seeking regularization of as many as 722 contract employees (from BPS 1 to BPS-15) of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) with the civic body has decided to pay their salaries right from January 1, 2019.
With the Mayor Karachi Waseem Akhtar in the chair, the city council session was held at old-KMC building which adopted nearly one dozen resolutions among them establishment of a Zoo Department, taking back certain privileges of KMC officials as part of the Mayor's austerity measures, change of name of senior director municipal services to director general municipal services, establishing secretariat at the Metropolitan Commissioner's office, merging KMC directorate from the present 45 departments/sub-sections into 14 departments and a central record registry (CRR) department as part of the administration department. The post of senior director has been abolished in the schedule of establishment of KMC and now the 19 and 20 grade officers will be called directors and 18 to 19 additional directors.
Adopting a resolution, the council has urged Pakistan People's Party-led Sindh government to release Rs 2.5 million monthly development fund among the union committees.
Deputy Mayor Syed Arshad Hassan and Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Syed Saifur Rehman were also present on the floor. In response to demands from the legislators, Mayor said he cannot approve any scheme that more than Rs 20 million under the existing SLGA saying the mega schemes rest with the Sindh government.
He said the engineering department lies under him and construction is KMC's function, but powers are with the Sindh government. This is the system. "Amendment can be done through provincial assembly." He also explained that funds for Annual Development Program (ADP) come in four quarters from the Sindh government in a year. Each quarter's fund is Rs830 million. As for the last quarter, he said that the Sindh government hasn't released the funds, due to which the corporation is unable to complete its pending projects.
With passage of another resolution, the council has formed a committee comprising parliamentary leaders of all political parties to put forward recommendations to the provincial government for certain but necessary amendments in the Sindh Local Government Act (SLGA)-2013.
This committee will be headed by Deputy Mayor. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's elected chairman from district west, Saeed Mairaj demanded a resolution against minister local government, Saeed Ghani. He pointed out that how his district has been littered with garbage and the Sindh government has miserably failed to clean it.
Waseem said that with curtailment in POL expenditures and closure of newspapers and telephone facility on residence of officers and other measures millions of rupees would be saved in KMC.