Staff Reporter
Acting President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Khurram Shahzad, while expressing dismay over poor performance of all six District Municipal Corporations (DMCs) and their failure to ensure sustainable cleanliness all over the city, urged the higher authorities at the Provincial Government to take strictest notice by initiating the audit of funds being given every year to these DMCs in order to find out where exactly were these huge funds ending up and this audit report must also be publicized.
“Keeping in view the huge amounts involving billions of rupees being allocated to all DMCs and their pathetic performance, I am sure these funds were not being utilized for the actual purposes but were probably being wasted or landing up in someone else’s pocket due to unbridled corruption that needs immediate attention otherwise the Karachiites, instead of enjoying the monsoon rainfalls, will continue to suffer every year”, he added in a statement issued on Monday. He pointed out that thousands of employees are working in each DMC but hardly a few are seen on streets clearing the garbage which means that majority of them were ghost employees who existed on papers only.
In order to deal with this serious issue, the government will have to implement biometric system for recording the attendance including the time-in and time-out of the entire workforce while the accurate number of staff, their job description along with breakup of funds for each area of the District must also be made public, which would help in improving the performance to a certain extent, he suggested.
Referring to the ongoing spell of severe Monsoon rainfalls this year, Khurram Shahzad said that the rainfall in Karachi which was not that intense, usually brings joys on the faces of the masses all around the world and even in Islamabad which undergoes frequent torrential rains but unfortunately, it always intensifies the hardships for Karachiites who have to suffer badly not just for hours or days but for weeks on the roads of Karachi because of standstill rainwater, chocked sewerage lines, wrecked roads, severe traffic jams and the outbreak of epidemic diseases mainly caused by mosquitoes and bees.
“Hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes and bees are nowadays seen almost everywhere due to unattended garbage and filthy water, which are ideal breeding spots for these bees and mosquitoes. It is a matter of grave concern that despite so much yelling and a hearing going on at the honorable court, neither any DMC nor KMC have bothered to initiate any insecticide drive in any area of Karachi which has resulted in the outbreak of numerous epidemic diseases, particularly the dengue fever”, he added.
Acting President KCCI further pointed out that people lose their lives during rainfall mainly due to dilapidated infrastructure of K-Electric but nobody has bothered to pay any attention to this serious issue.
