Wake-up call: 'NSUSC has turned the city into a shambles'
Alliance of political parties protests against poor sanitation standards
SUKKUR:
The Sukkur Development Alliance (SDA) staged on Wednesday a protest demonstration against the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation (NSUSC) following poor sanitation standards in the city.
SDA is a joint forum of different political parties including, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Sunni Tehreek, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam- Fazl, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and others.
Carrying placards and shouting slogans against the NSUSC, scores of activists from the platform of SDA, led by its chairperson Jawed Memon, took to the streets from Sarrafa Bazaar and marching the thoroughfares reached at Clock Tower roundabout, where they staged the protest demonstration.
NSUSC has turned the city into a shambles, asserted Memon, adding that despite having a large number of sanitation staff, the utility has failed to clean the city and resultantly, heaps of garbage can be seen everywhere. Most of NSUSC's funds are lost in corruption to appease political lords, claimed Memon.
We are facing an acute shortage of sanitation staff, but despite this we are trying our best to overcome the problem, claimed NSUSC spokesperson Malook Buledi, while talking to The Express Tribune. NSUSC is not empowered to recruit manpower and we have to borrow sanitation and other staff from Sukkur Municipal Corporation (SMC), he said, adding that most sanitation staff, recruited on political grounds in SMC, is white-collared and therefore, are sent back to SMC.
After the revival of the local government system, we have placed sanitation staff under various union council chairpersons and now, it is up to them to make them work properly, he said. Apart from other issues, NSUSC is also facing the problem of ghost employees, who are sitting at their homes and receiving salaries, admitted Buledi, adding that the sanitary inspectors at union council level are playing negative roles because they extort money from the sanitation staff and let them [the staff] sit at home and receive salaries.
Speaking on SDA's protest, he said that Memon is also the chairperson of a union council and we [NSUSC] have given him 14 sanitary workers for his UC and now it is his duty to look after them. A protest is not the solution to this problem, rather they should come and sit and have dialogue with the high-ups of NSUSC, said Buledi
Meanwhile, Memon said that the sanitary workers given to him by the NSUSC are not working as they 'enjoy' political backing.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2016.
The Sukkur Development Alliance (SDA) staged on Wednesday a protest demonstration against the North Sindh Urban Services Corporation (NSUSC) following poor sanitation standards in the city.
SDA is a joint forum of different political parties including, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Sunni Tehreek, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam- Fazl, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and others.
Carrying placards and shouting slogans against the NSUSC, scores of activists from the platform of SDA, led by its chairperson Jawed Memon, took to the streets from Sarrafa Bazaar and marching the thoroughfares reached at Clock Tower roundabout, where they staged the protest demonstration.
NSUSC has turned the city into a shambles, asserted Memon, adding that despite having a large number of sanitation staff, the utility has failed to clean the city and resultantly, heaps of garbage can be seen everywhere. Most of NSUSC's funds are lost in corruption to appease political lords, claimed Memon.
We are facing an acute shortage of sanitation staff, but despite this we are trying our best to overcome the problem, claimed NSUSC spokesperson Malook Buledi, while talking to The Express Tribune. NSUSC is not empowered to recruit manpower and we have to borrow sanitation and other staff from Sukkur Municipal Corporation (SMC), he said, adding that most sanitation staff, recruited on political grounds in SMC, is white-collared and therefore, are sent back to SMC.
After the revival of the local government system, we have placed sanitation staff under various union council chairpersons and now, it is up to them to make them work properly, he said. Apart from other issues, NSUSC is also facing the problem of ghost employees, who are sitting at their homes and receiving salaries, admitted Buledi, adding that the sanitary inspectors at union council level are playing negative roles because they extort money from the sanitation staff and let them [the staff] sit at home and receive salaries.
Speaking on SDA's protest, he said that Memon is also the chairperson of a union council and we [NSUSC] have given him 14 sanitary workers for his UC and now it is his duty to look after them. A protest is not the solution to this problem, rather they should come and sit and have dialogue with the high-ups of NSUSC, said Buledi
Meanwhile, Memon said that the sanitary workers given to him by the NSUSC are not working as they 'enjoy' political backing.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2016.