VC, councillors point fingers at MC Chairman

Protesters blame chairman, CMO, accounts officers of plundering millions of MC funds

HYDERABABD: The elected representatives of Municipal Committee Mirpurkhas have unleashed a blame game of corruption on each other with the chairman and vice chairman leading the two opposing groups.

The vice chairman, Fareed Ahmed Khan, led a protest in Mirpurkhas on Tuesday in which several ward councillors participated. He accused the MC Chairman Farooq Jameel Durrani and chief municipal officer (CMO) Shafiq Shah of embezzling public funds.

"The Sindh government provides Rs33.5 million every month to the municipal committee. During the last 20 months around Rs520m have been released for 47 wards of the committee, however, the state of cleanliness and services in Mirpurkhas present a sordid picture," Khan said.

The protesters blamed the  chairman, CMO and accounts officers of plundering tens of millions of rupees from the MC funds. According to them, millions of rupees have been spent on buying luxury cars and for emergency expenditure.

Chairman Durrani reacted to the allegations by saying that the vice chairman and the ward councillors protesting against him are themselves involved in corruption.

"Khan caused a loss of Rs350,000 to the committee by submitting a fake bill. Similarly, I also have evidence of fake bills amounting to thousands of rupees which were submitted by the other councillors," said Durrani.

He added that the protesters were trying to malign him to hide their own corruption. Meanwhile, the CMO has marked 110 lower staff employees as a burden on the committee's expenditure while recommending a layoff.

The protesting councillors opposed the recommended action arguing that the state of cleanliness will further deteriorate if staff is laid off.