Sindh Senior Minister for Information and Transport Sharjeel Inam Memon has said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) is unnecessarily politicising various issues in an attempt to revive its dead politics.
In a press statement issued on Monday, he stated gas supply was the federal government’s responsibility and the K-Electric (KE) was also not under the administrative control of the Sindh government.
Regarding the water shortage, he said, the Sindh government had already informed the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) through an official letter that the province was currently facing a 22 per cent water shortage, which was also affecting Karachi.
The MQM-P frequently attempted to shift the burden of issues within the federal government’s jurisdiction onto the Sindh government, Memon remarked, adding that instead of focusing on resolving public problems, the MQM-P’s politics in Karachi revolved around using such issues for political gain.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was an ally neither of the MQM-P nor of the federal government, the Sindh information minister said. He clarified that the PPP had extended support to the federal government for the continuation of the parliamentary system and democratic process.
He said Karachi was once regarded as one of the finest cities in the world. It was also the capital of Pakistan, and students from various regions, including the Gulf countries, came here for higher education.
According to Memon, the city’s decline began when the foundations of ethnic and linguistic politics were laid. Karachi’s problems worsened when parks were converted into marriage halls by local government institutions, he said adding that the MQM-P leadership was fully aware of such facts as parks and sports grounds were encroached upon and individuals later accused of serious crimes, including terrorism, were inducted into the local government institutions.
He said that during the operations conducted in 2015 and 2016, several terrorists employed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and water board were detected. Memon alleged that in the past, some local bodies employees spent their time in unit and sector offices of the MQM-P instead of performing their official duties.
Journalist Wali Khan Babar reported on such issues and was later murdered, the minister said. He stated that Karachi was a port city through which a significant portion of the country’s heavy traffic passed. He added that Sindh’s share of infrastructure funds remained tied up in the Supreme Court due to various legal matters and was therefore not being made available to the province.
He said that Karachi contributed the highest revenue to the national economy. People from across Pakistan come to Karachi for employment, business, education, and healthcare. If other cities offered better opportunities, people would choose to go there, but Karachi remained the country’s largest economic and commercial hub, he asserted.
Memon reiterated that the Sindh government had officially informed Irsa that the province was facing a 22 per cent water shortage. He said that water scarcity affected not only agriculture but also the urban water supply.
Karachi was the last major city in Sindh to receive water from the provincial distribution system; therefore, when overall water availability declined, the impact was directly felt in Karachi as well.
