Sindh govt silent over KMC-KDA tug of war

Civic agencies in disagreement over possession of cars for personal use of officers

KARACHI: While the city suffers from severe civic crises, the battle between Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) continues unabated. Meanwhile, the Sindh government’s silence speaks volumes.

This time, the two civic agencies are at loggerheads over the possession of cars for the personal use of officers. In a recent move, the KDA has written a letter to the housing and town planning and local government minister over possession of the vehicles purchased in the era of City District Government Karachi (CDGK), when all the municipalities were operating under it. On Thursday night, additional KMC director Ahsan Moon reportedly reached the house of KDA director-general Nasir Abbas’s personal secretary, Riaz Ahmed Rashid, along with two city wardens and one police mobile, and forcefully took over a car that was officially allocated to Rashid.

In the wake of this incident, the letter was written by Abbas, a copy of which is also available with The Express Tribune. According to the letter, the CDGK was created in 2001, under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance (SLGO), 2001. At that time, the KMC, KDA, District Council Karachi and different departments of the Sindh government, including education, health, social work departments, were the main constituents of the CDGK.



“It is pointed out that on dissolution of the CDGK, no local body has so far been declared as successor of the CDGK. Neither a notification or statute nor the [Sindh Local Government Act] SLGA, 2013, have any provision and clause with regards to the successor of the CDGK,” the letter reads. The letter points out that during the decade of the CDGK, it purchased different types of vehicles, machinery and other durable items to be used by the CDGK officers. “Entire KDA income during 2002 to 2011 were taken over or diverted to the CDGK main accounts and operated by the finance department of the CDGK. These funds were also utilised for purchase of vehicles by the CDGK,” the letter reads.

In such a situation when no successor of CDGK has been notified through any notification, the letter says that the ownership rights of items purchased by the CDGK by the KMC is illegal, unauthorised and without any support of law. According to the letter, since the revival of KDA, it is claiming equal share in all CDGK properties, purchased or owned by the CDGK. The letter adds that the vehicles and machinery purchased and owned by the KDA are still in possession of the KMC staff without any lawful authority.

Referring to the Thursday’s incident in the letter, the Sindh government has been asked to take up the issue of forceful takeover of the vehicle from the residence of the private secretary to KDA director-general. The government has been further requested to look into the matter of CDGK successor and distribution of the vehicles and machineries purchased and owned by the CDGK among the claimants, including KDA and KMC.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Rashid said the vehicle was provided by some contractor for a project initiated and completed by the CDGK and since then it was officially allocated to the KDA director-general’s private secretary. Meanwhile, KMC’s metropolitan commissioner Badar Jameel told The Express Tribune that the KMC has nothing to do with the forceful possession of the car from any of the KDA’s official. However, he blamed the KDA for illegally using KMC’s vehicles.

“Whenever we write letter to the KDA for possession of our properties, they throw them in the dustbin,” he claimed, adding that now they are left with no option but to register an FIR against the KDA officials and approach the court. There are a total of 150 vehicles worth Rs40 million belonging to the KMC, which the KDA has illegally kept with them, Jameel claimed. He added that during the CDGK’s era, both the municipalities used to have separate budgets and these vehicles were purchased from the KMC’s budget.

Other incidents

Last year in November, electricity connection to the KMC’s offices on the fourth and fifth floors of Civic Centre building was suspended for half-an-hour and the equipment belonging to the KMC staffers were confiscated by KDA officials.

In October, through a series of letters, a war began among both the civic bodies over possession of different properties, including a VVIP rest house and a bungalow on the Central Ordinance Depot Hills.

The process of taking over the Civic Centre building started in the mid of June, when Abbas, who was the senior director of KDA wing, was given the additional charge of the KDA director-general by the Sindh government and he started sitting in the office in which the KMC administrator used to sit. When the then KMC administrator, Laeeq Ahmed, came to know that his office has been occupied by the KDA director-general, he shifted to the administrator’s camp office located behind the National Stadium. Apart from this, last year, the KDA had restrained the KMC from collecting parking fees within their jurisdiction.

Local government secretary Muhammad Ramzan Awan did not respond to the repeated phone calls by The Express Tribune for a comment on this issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2017.