The Sindh High Court has directed the Karachi Development Authority to submit the details of the last five years’ earning through development charges from the citizen.
The direction came on a petition of retired KDA employees, who moved the court against the non-payment of their pensionary benefits dues. KDA counsel submitted that the KDA has been facing financial hardships for the past couple of years. Filing comments on the petition, he said the KDA had already paid a huge amount of billions of rupees to its retired employees.
He said the KDA finance department has recently moved a summary of Rs5,000 million to the finance department for obtaining an additional grant to clear KDA liabilities An SHC’s division bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Saleem Jessar, inquired the KDA counsel about the use of the development charges the KDA has been charging from the citizens.
The counsel said that he has no knowledge about the use and sought time to file comments showing the details of the last five years’ money that has been earned through development charges from the citizens.
The court directed finance department officials to appear before the court along with information. In another petition pertaining to retirement dues of all town municipal corporations, the court called a report from the finance department with regard to the distribution of funds to the TMCs.
Karachi Metropolitan Corporation counsel submitted that as per a letter of the director welfare KMC, the matter was taken up by the provincial government where it had been requested to arrange funds for the clearance of pensionary dues of retired employees of all TMCs in Karachi, including the petitioners, subject to providing funds by the department.
According to the correspondence, the KMC’s finance department said the finance department was releasing funds for disbursement of monthly pension to the retired employees of TMCs and these funds are exclusively being utilized for disbursement of the monthly pension to the TMCs pensioners including petitioners.
The KMC has requested arrangement of funds amounting to Rs9,862 million for athe clearance of pensionary dues of retired employees of all TMCs of Karachi, including the petitioners, as per a direction of the SHC so that pensionary benefits may be paid to all retired employees accordingly. The court directed the finance department and Sindh government to file compliance on the next date of hearing.
