Karachi: The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) government in Sindh has said that notable social figures of Karachi’s civil society will also be considered for the post of administrator of the city as a replacement for Karachi’s mayor after completion of his term in less than a week.
This will be a departure from past tradition as generally serving civil servants associated with the Sindh government, local leaders of the ruling political parties, or notable figures close to the rulers of the province have been appointed as administrators of Karachi.
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From 2010 to 2016, when no elected mayor was available to run municipal affairs due to delay in local government elections, various serving bureaucrats served as administrators of the city.
It is now the prerogative of the PPP Sindh government to appoint an administrator when the term of incumbent Karachi’s Mayor Waseem Akhtar ends on August 29, 2020. The administrator will remain in office till the time next mayor of Karachi is elected after the local government elections in Sindh.
Expiry of term
A meeting of the Sindh cabinet held on Thursday authorised Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah to appoint administrators all over the province to head different municipal agencies after the expiry of the term of the elected local government leadership in Sindh.
The issue of appointment of Karachi’s next administrator is reportedly one of the main points discussed among three main political parties in Karachi - the PPP, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and Muttahida Quami Movement - last week when they entered into an accord to work jointly for the development of the business capital of Pakistan.
The three parties decided to constitute a joint committee to collaborate with each other for Karachi’s development that has long been neglected.
But on a number occasions, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other leaders of the party have made it clear that entering into the accord and formation of the joint committee doesn’t meant that the provincial government will withdraw from its constitutional powers to manage and run Karachi.
They also categorically negated the impression that the accord among the three parties would pave the way for the imposition of the federal government’s rule in Karachi.
Good reputation
Other political parties have emphasised that a politically neutral person with a good reputation, who also possess the ability to manage Karachi’s affairs, should be appointed as the city’s administrator.
The issue also caught the attention of the PPP’s chairman who recently met Karachi-based leaders of his party and discussed the probable names.
The meeting held at Bilawal House Karachi decided that whether the next administrator of Karachi is a bureaucrat or a member of civil society, he or she should be a native of the city.
Speaking on the occasion, Bilawal Bhutto Zadari warned that nobody should dream that control of Karachi could be handed over to the federal government.
He said that there was no valid cause to demand that the federal government should assume control of Karachi on the basis of civic problems of the city caused due to natural causes (like heavy monsoon rains). If such demands are made, then they will not remain specific to Karachi, he said and that such a demand could be made for other metropolitan cities of Pakistan, like Lahore or Peshawar.
'Dear to me'
The PPP chairman said that Karachi was his city and its development was dear to him.
He said that people of Karachi had the right to make decisions about their native city and the federal government should not decide about the capital city of the province.
He said that the PPP as being the ruling party of the province would not make any compromise on the authority vested in it to rule Sindh on the basis of mandate given by the people of Sindh.
He added that politics on basis of ethnicity and hatred in the past had only accentuated the civic problems of Karachi.
Bilawal said that only his party could provide solution to problems of Karachi. “Likewise the case of the entire country, I stand with each and every citizen of Karachi,” he said.
He said that the Sindh government had been doing an excellent job to develop Karachi as there was a need to further speed up and expand scope of this work.
“There will be no compromise on the continuity of efforts to resolve problems of Karachi,” said Bilawal.
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