City governance: Mayor should head KWSB, says MQM bill

The proposed amendment to the KWSB Act 1996 will retract powers from LG minister.

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has submitted a private bill in the Sindh Assembly to make the city's mayor head of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) instead of the provincial local government minister.



The bill was submitted by party lawmaker Syed Khalid Ahmed. "The Sindh government can appoint any one as the chairperson and vice-chairperson of the board," he said. But, he added, we want these powers to be given to Karachi's representatives.

According to the MQM legislator, the amendment would be made in the KWSB Act 1996, with a para adding that the Karachi mayor should be the chairperson of the board, while a member of the Sindh Assembly elected from the city should be appointed as its vice-chairperson.



Sharing details of the bill, he said that the speaker of the assembly can appoint the vice-chancellor. He said that the whole para of clause 4, sub class I will be deleted if the amendment is made in the assembly.

According to MQM's Syed Sardar Ahmed, the mayor was the head of the water and sewerage board during the tenure of former city nazim Mustafa Kamal. The Sindh government made the local government minister the water board's chairperson, he added.

"It should exclusively be the power of the mayor," he said. "The minister looks after the affairs of the whole province," Syed Sardar said.

Currently, Sindh LG minister Jam Khan Shoro is the chairperson of the KWSB and Muhammad Sajid Jokhio, the Pakistan Peoples Party's MPA from Malir, is its vice chairperson.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2015.