KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has approved Rs170 million grant for Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) in order to make the organization financially stable.
The chief minister took the decision while presiding over a meeting to review the financial condition of KMC. KMC has failed to pay salaries to its senior employees from the months of November and December 2020.
Minister Local Government Syed Nasir Shah, Adviser for Law Murtaza Wahab, Secretary Local Government Najam Shah and Administrator KMC Laiq Ahmed, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, and other concerned officers attended the meeting.
The chief minister also constituted a committee, headed by Minister Local Government Syed Nasir Shah to submit their recommendations to make KMC financially stable.
During the meeting, CM Murad said that it was quite disturbing to know that Karachi, being the industrial hub of the country, was financially running the entire country but its metropolitan corporation had bogged down in the financial crisis.
“We have to overhaul various wings of the metropolitan corporation, particularly those which are responsible for revenue collection,” the chief minister added.
Meanwhile, Nasir Hussain Shah said that the DMCs have not only curtailed their non-development expenditures but have enhanced their revenue collection. Quoting the example of the DMC South, Nasir Shah said that it used to collect Rs9 million from charged parking and has now increased the collection to Rs750 million.
The KMC administrator, briefing the chief minister said that there were around 1.4 million establishments from where the KMC collected Municipal Utility & Conservancy Tax (MUCT). However, this time it could have only collected Rs280 million from 35,000 units.
“I want you to prepare a financial model and present it within the next 15 days. After that I’ll add necessary input to make the KMC a rich organisation,” he said.
He also directed the Local Government Department to issue a notification to take back collection of tax from Mobile Phone Towers from SBCA and hand it over to KMC. “The collection whatever the SBCA has made so far should be paid back to KMC,” he directed.
