Karachi

Sindh Local Government Minister, Saeed Ghani, has asked the officials concerned to verify the presence of staffers in all municipal agencies in the province as their salaries should be credited directly to their bank accounts after bio-metric verification of their attendance.
The Local Government Minister issued the directives to this effect on Thursday in his surprise visits to the offices of SWEEP (Solid Waste Emergency and Efficiency) and CLICK (Competitive and Livable City of Karachi) projects.
Ghani directed the officials concerned that verification of the presence of municipal staffers should be carried out till the level of union committees.
He directed the officials concerned that public interest should be taken care of along with ensuring transparency while carrying out all works under the CLICK project.
CLICK Project Director Asif Jnan Siddiqui briefed the Local Government Minister about the development projects being completed in Karachi in partnership with the World Bank and future projects having cost of billions of rupees to be executed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.
The Project Director briefed the Sindh Minister that verification of the presence of municipal staffers had been completed at 12 towns of Karachi and KMC under the CLICK project
In the case of the KMC, 950 ghost employees have been detected while 200 staffers have been drawing salaries from two different agencies based on a single Computerized National Identity Card.
The Project Director told Ghani that development funds available with the KMC would be spent in the next financial year to build eight community centers, two playgrounds, and dozens of roads in Karachi.
A system has been developed for the collection of property tax from Karachi under the Urban Immovable Property Tax project.
He briefed the Local Government Minister that over 800,000 properties were registered but only 1,50,000 property owners in Karachi pay this tax.
He said the GIS (Geographical Information System) would be utilised to bring under the tax net over three million residential, commercial, and industrial properties in Karachi. This drive will ensure the financial empowerment of municipal agencies in Karachi.
Ghani later went to SWEEP project offices and received a briefing from the project’s Managing Director Zubair Channa about the ongoing development works.
Ghani said the process of setting up garbage transfer stations should be expedited to adopt a scientific process of disposal of the municipal waste generated in Karachi.