The Sindh government can legally appoint anyone of its choice, whether a government official or a member of civil society, as a city administrator, claimed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference at the Peoples Secretariat while flanked by other party leaders, Khuhro took the opportunity to respond to reports that the PPP-led Sindh government was mulling over selecting from a shortlist of bureaucrats and members of civil society for the Karachi administrator post. The administrator is to be appointed after the city mayor steps down this week.
He then turned to the provincial government's controversial decision to create a seventh district - Keamari - in Karachi.
"Those who are raising objections to this decision are merely spreading bias. When Karachi was divided into 18 towns during the reign of [former president] Pervez Musharraf, members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement were beating drums in celebration," Khuhro asserted.
He added that raising questions about linguistic differences was incomprehensible when Keamari, with a population of 4.5 million people, was being given the status of a district.
Meanwhile, Khuhro also said that while it was compulsory for the election commission to hold polls within 120 days of the local government bodies completing their terms, the election commission had not yet issued the final lists for the census.
"The authorities cannot conduct the elections until they receive the lists," he maintained, adding that they had written to the election commission for the lists' provision and would also approach the courts over the matter.
He also referred to the idea of a presidential system in the country, stating such a system could not be adopted as long as the constitutional democratic system existed. "The presidential system can be imposed in Pakistan only when a dictator like Musharraf arrives. Otherwise, there is no place for it in the Constitution."
Lambasting the federal government, the PPP leader said Prime Minister Imran Khan and the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were collecting "extortion" from the citizens in the name of paying back the country's loans, after increasing inflation in the country.
"Instead of being provided homes in the PTI's two years of governance, citizens are being provided graves," he stated.
During the press conference, PTI members from the PS-87 constituency, including PTI Sindh Labour Wing's former additional general secretary Danish Khokhar, Ali Nawaz Kakiputo and others, announced their decision to join the PPP.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2020.
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