Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Eidul Azha criticised the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led Sindh government for lack of sanitation arrangements in the city for the religious festival stating that residents of Karachi were still forced to pay out of their pocket for basic garbage collection despite the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board’s (SSWMB) Rs43 billion budget.
Speaking to media representatives after visiting a collective sacrifice centre established by the JI and Alkhidmat Foundation at Masjid Quba in Federal B Area on the first day of the Eid, he said government arrangements for disposal of sacrificial waste were extremely inadequate. He said the JI-administered towns in Karachi had arranged sanitation and waste disposal measures on a self-help basis to facilitate observance of sacrifice during the Eid holidays.
The JI chief also announced that the party’s protest movement against rising petroleum prices would continue after Eidul Azha. The JI would call a wheel-jam strike in protest against fuel price hikes and excessive petroleum levies imposed on the public, he said.
He added that the amount collected from citizens through petroleum levies exceeded the value of two International Monetary Fund programmes. He accused the government of protecting independent power producers at the expense of the public welfare.
Extending Eid greetings to the nation, the JI chief said large-scale animal sacrifices were taking place across the country and praised volunteers and party workers for ensuring orderly arrangements at collective sacrifice centres in Karachi. He said more than 150 collective sacrifice sites had been established in the city under the JI and Alkhidmat’s supervision.
