City Nazim lays stress on single authority

KARACHI: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal said on Wednesday that Karachi cannot make sustainable development until the cantonment boards and other civic agencies are put under a unified authority.

“At present, various agencies are working independently, which is hampering development of the city,” the city nazim said at a meet the press programme of the Karachi Press Club.

“Unity of command is key to improved and sustainable economic and administrative development of Karachi, which is serving also the Central Asian Republics, Afghanistan, the Middle East etc.”

Ardently maintaining that there should be a unity of command by a single authority, he sought the role of civil society and the media in this regard.

The nazim said he had been vocal in the past also in exposing the management problems of the city under 13 different bosses.

“I don’t say that heads of the Defence Housing Authority, cantonment boards or any other agency should withdraw from the land control on their areas, but they somehow should come to a central place for the sake of improved municipal services and provision of better civic amenities, water, power, sewerage, building control, town-planning and revenue resources,” he said.

The city nazim further recalled that a Supreme Court verdict in October 2007 had also corroborated the unity-of-command idea for bringing all stake-holders or civic agencies functioning in the city at one point as far as strategic planning and development of the city was concerned. However, some agencies, including cantonment boards, sought a review of the verdict.

Kamal, however, said now the CDGK was preparing to get the review petition vacated.

He said he and his colleagues in the city government served all sections of the population in every nook and corner of the city.

He spoke about infrastructural and amenity development projects undertaken during the last four years and expressed the hope that the people assuming leadership after him would continue to care for the dynamics of development in the city.

While work on bridges and flyovers for the signal-free Corridor-4 had already been launched, preparatory work for Corridore-5, from Sohrab Goth to M. A. Jinnah Road, was also in progress, he said.