Politics on Karachi will cost both PTI, PPP: Umar
Planning Minister Asad Umar on Wednesday urged the Pakistan Peoples Party to focus on the groundwork of the projects in Karachi, committed during the agreement between the federal government and Sindh, instead of securing political point-scoring.
“People of Karachi are not concerned with who is contributing; they only want groundwork of the projects,” he told reporters after the National Assembly Standing Committee on Planning meeting.
The minister expressed disappointment over the “insane debate” going on for the last four days that who was contributing more in the megacity projects.
“The people of Karachi will hurl shoes at both the PPP and the PTI if they continue press conferences against each other instead of initiating practical work,” he added.
Referring to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s presser, the minister said that the Centre was not much concerned if the Sindh government claimed that it was contributing Rs700 billion to the Rs1,100 billion worth of Karachi Transformation Plan. But, he said the PPP “did not have the will” to initiate work for the development of the city.
“If you [PPP] do not have [the] will to work, it will not be done through just press conferences,” he said, “work from our [govt] side has started as I called a meeting immediately after the agreement in which a week-long deadline was set to start implementing the plan.”
The planning minister shared that he has written a letter to the Sindh chief minister for handing over the Greater Karachi Water Supply Project (K-IV) to the Center as per the desire of the Sindh government. The federal government had already initiated the process for implementation of the KTP, he added.
To a question, the minister said that the K-IV, Karachi Circular Railways, Greenline Rapid Transport System and S3 were old projects but the groundwork on such projects never started.
When a reporter suggested that such projects were “failed ones”, he questioned how it could be declared as failed projects when the work on them did not start.
NA panel reviews bills
The NA Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, which met under the chairmanship of Junaid Akbar, was briefed on the Public Private Partnership Authority Amendment Bill 2020.
The planning ministry officials informed the panel that such an ordinance was important to be passed from parliament. The authority has to start projects with an investment of Rs300 billion from private investors, they said, adding that amendments have been introduced in ease of doing business in the 2020 ordinance. No investment would be made without the rules of the authority, they added.
With such legislation, a public private partnership working party would be established.
“Why not a minister is leading the working party,” Committee Chairman Akbar asked.
To this, the planning minister said there is a perception that “ministers are corrupt.”
In response, PML-N lawmaker Junaid Anwar said: “Is this your viewpoint or someone else’s that all ministers are corrupt.”
Umar supported his statement by quoting the court decision that a minister can’t lead the party. He added that under the authority, a risk management system would be established in the finance ministry.
(WITH INPUT FROM APP)