Former mayor denounces Wahab’s appointment as administrator

MQM-P was fast progressing and would soon regain its lost turf, says Wasim Akhtar

KARACHI:

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan deputy convenor and former Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar denounced on Thursday Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab appointment as the Karachi administrator.

"Wahab is a political person and a political person cannot be appointed as an administrator," said Akhtar, addressing an event organised by MQM-P in connection with independence month at the Anu Bhai Park, Nazimabad.

Wahab, who is also the advisor to Sindh chief minister on law, was appointed city administrator earlier this month, replacing bureaucrat Laeeq Ahmed. The latter had previously served as the Karachi administrator from 2015 to 2016.

Ahmed was the Sindh excise, taxation and narcotics control secretary when he was appointed in December 2020, relieving Bs-20 grade officer Iftikhar Shallwani, who took charge after Akthar's tenure as mayor expired on August 30, 2020.

Read More: Karachi belongs to all of us: Wahab

The Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government was bound to hold elections within three months after the tenure of elected officials ended but has yet failed to do so.

A day earlier, MQM-P convenor Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui accused the PPP of using the controversial 2017 census as an excuse to avoid holding local government polls. At a press conference on Wednesday, he demanded that the polls be held immediately and warned that his party felt Sindh's urban areas were being pushed towards a civil disobedience movement.

Echoing a similar sentiment, Akhtar said that even if the PPP made its chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari the city administrator it would fail to serve the metropolis.

The former mayor said the MQM-P was fast progressing and would soon regain its lost turf.

Akhtar said the MQM-P was celebrating 'independence month' and party workers were busy organising activities at the local level, including a sports tournament to be held at the Anu Bhai Park and a mushaira at the same venue on August 28. Such activities were needed given the circumstances the country is facing, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2021.