‘Only Karachiites can resolve city's issues’

MQM-P to call all parties conference to address metropolis' woes

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Khawaja Izharul Hassan announced on Tuesday that his party would soon be organising an all parties conference to find a solution to Karachi's problems.

Addressing a press conference, Hassan said, "Only the citizens of Karachi have the solution to its problems," and if they were not involved in projects pertaining to the metropolis' uplift, its condition might not ever improve.

Basing his arguments on these grounds, he said the MQM-P would be calling an all parties conference, titled the 'Karachi Conference', which he said would include the participation of traders, scholars, doctors and people from other backgrounds.

Expressing gratitude to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for providing their services for Karachi, the MQM-P leader said, "It is beyond comprehension why Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has been egoistic on the matter of the city's cleaning."

However, he added that he believed taking the NDMA's help was just a temporary solution and the provincial and federal government needed to be on the same page to find a permanent solution to Karachi's problems.

Maintaining that Karachi had been deprived of its rights and was facing prejudice, Hassan said, "It has been separated from the rest of the province by being divided into six districts." He also pointed out that the city was provided less than 500 MGD of water against its need of 1,200 MGD.

The MQM-P leader further claimed that whenever resources were demanded for the metropolis, it security had been risked. He criticised "giving cantonments the control of some parts of the city."

"Why does the city function like this?" the MQM-P leader questioned.

He further alleged that billions of rupees had been embezzled under the guise of repairing and constructing roads in Karachi.

According to Hassan, the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government "sold off 200,000 jobs, which rightfully belonged to Karachi's citizens," to others on the basis of fake domiciles.

The MQM-P MPA claimed that the Sindh government had wrongly mentioned the cost of a Rs25 billion project as Rs125 million and while "it turned Karachi into Larkana, it also turned Larkana into Mohenjo Daro." He went on to say, "The only threat Sindh is facing is from its rulers, its rich ministers and their biased policies."

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2020.