1. Karachi has been ruled by PPP for the last 12 years, the first 5 of which were in coalition with MQM. Before that MQM ruled Karachi for 9 years. And in all this time Karachi has been deteriorating, so for MQM and PPP to try to evade responsibility is a bit rich.
2. Whether in violence, degradation of infrastructure, corruption in land transfers, water distribution, education etc, there isn’t one area where Karachi has kept pace with the rest of Pakistan much less the world. Yet politicians elected from and ruling Karachi aren’t bothered.
3. PPP has deprived Karachi of funds & has transferred authority to the province which should rightly belong to the city. But KMC still has residual authority & money and those aren’t being deployed effectively at all. MQM talks a good game but has never delivered for Karachi.
4. Today PTI has 14 MNAs and 2 ministers from KHI and MQM has 4 MNAs and 2 ministers from KHI. Remember when in opposition PTI leaders were seen in boats being dragged by people on foot. Now they aren’t seen much here. PTI MNAs have got development funds but we don’t see impact.
5. Green line a BRT project that PMLN built was 12 weeks from completion when we left office. It’s still not operational today, something PTI should have done. And PTI leaders, who talk so much about corruption, are trying to get their pound of flesh from bus operators.
6. Gas & power are federal issues and Karachi has been the worst affected by PTI during the last two years. Even though PMLN restored peace in Karachi and gave it more resources, we were handicapped by not being allied with PPP or MQM. Yet PMLN should’ve done more for Karachi.
7. I promised water desalination plant for this water deprived city in my budget speech. PTI too promised desal plants for Karachi. Yet it has done nothing. It collected donations for cleaning up Karachi, but it’s efforts are limited to just getting donation & not doing the work.
8. It doesn’t take much money to set up desal plants (you can sell water) or collect garbage (that you can sell for power generation). It just takes some creativity, competence and will. That seems to be lacking here. Look at Lahore which successfully solved its garbage problem.
9. The rains have brought Karachi’s neglect over the years in sharp focus. But the idea of making Karachi a “federal city”, is a crazy idea. The solution is always more democracy not less. Empower the people of Karachi (and people of other cities and towns and villages).
10.PTI disbanded local govts across Punjab 2 years ago. But PPP didn’t dispense with MQM’s local govt. Let’s give constitutional cover to empowered local govts with resources across Pakistan. Let people from Karachi, Gwadar, Abbotabad, Multan, Lahore run their own local affairs.
