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Karachi City development trust fund set up

By Asad Hashim 

City Council convener and Karachi Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil has been nominated to be one of the members of the board which will manage the fund. - APP/File photo
KARACHI: In what proved to be a fiery session, the City Council passed by majority vote a resolution instituting the City Development Trust Fund, which is to be used by the city government to fund development and maintenance projects, and which will be collected in the form of voluntary donations from Karachi’s citizens.
Making an impassioned plea for the fund, house leader Asif Siddiqui said the initiative had been taken in order to ‘inculcate a sense of ownership’ amongst the citizens of Karachi. He said the donations for the fund were ‘entirely voluntary’ and that the trust fund was part of the ‘I own Karachi’ initiative.
The resolution was moved by Abdul Jalil, who complained that ‘only about Rs5 billion has been set aside for the development of Karachi in the current budget’.
He said that the point of the trust fund was for the citizens of Karachi ‘to be able to donate for their own development’.
He asserted that the working of the fund ‘will be transparent’, and that it would be managed by a board consisting of ‘reputable citizens of the city who have worked for its betterment’.
The three trustees are retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, Dr Adeeb Rizvi and Dr Ishrat Husain.
Mr Jalil said that initially the minimum donation would be Rs5, but that ‘it will be entirely voluntary’.
He also assured the house that the CDGK ‘would have no direct control over access to the funds’, and that even if the city nazim wished to use the funds for a project, he would have to approach the board of trustees and ask for their approval before doing so.
Responding to Mr Jalil’s initial comments, members of the opposition lauded the reputation of the trustees, but added that the city council should also be represented on the board. They nominated City Council convener and Karachi Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil to be the fourth member of the board, to which Ms Jalil retorted: ‘You do not listen to me on the floor of the house, how are you now accepting me as a trustee?’
Ms Jalil’s comment came after there had been much uproar earlier in the day regarding a resolution on the regularisation of land in Landhi UC-6.
The controversy was not limited to that resolution, however, as during the course of the debate over the City Development Trust Fund, one member of the opposition, expressing doubt over the efficacy of the process, said he would not donate even five paisas to the fund. To this, leader of the house Asif Siddiqui retorted that he ‘expected as much from people who are not permanent citizens of Karachi’.
This prompted much shouting and sloganeering from both sides of the house, which only ended once the opposition members staged a walkout (their second of the session).
After a short recess, Ms Jalil attempted to calm those present, but apparently neither the treasury nor the opposition were in any mood to be calmed.
Shamim Mumtaz of the opposition said that Mr Siddiqui had ‘gotten carried away’ during his speech, and said the opposition would accept it if he took back his words.
In reply, Mr Siddiqui demanded that the opposition member who refused to donate to the trust fund take back his own words first.
Ultimately, the opposition staged a final walkout and the convener had both comments removed from the record.
Speaking after the session, Mr Siddiqui clarified that he ‘had not meant his statement to apply to all members of the opposition, but only to the member who made the initial comment’.
Regarding the trust fund, treasury member Arshad Qureshi said the fund would initially be collected by sending letters inviting donations to all the citizens of Karachi having a bank account. Later, he said, an open account would be opened into which citizens might deposit their donations.
He said the fund ‘would be monitored by neutral people, and will only be used for development and maintenance work’.
‘The Nazim does not have discretionary powers over the fund,’ he added, ‘and he has to present his proposals to the board of trustees to have it passed.’
Regularisation of land in Landhi
Earlier in the session, the opposition staged its first walkout after treasury member Imran Ahmed moved a resolution calling for the regularisation of land in Landhi Town UC-6, where people ‘have been residing for 35 years’.
Mr Ahmed contended that the land had been occupied for the last several decades and that it should be regularised as quickly as possible so that citizens living there could be brought into the tax net and could also be extended all the utilities and services they require.
The opposition expressed its rejection of the resolution vocally, alleging that the ‘land mafia’ was being favoured by this move. They staged a walkout chanting ‘land mafia na manzoor [is not acceptable]!’
Mr Ahmed said there were markets, schools and playgrounds present in the so-called ‘katchi abadi’, and that it needed to be regularised. Arshad Qureshi and Asif Siddiqui spoke in favour of the resolution as well.
Shamim Mumtaz of the opposition benches asked the convener to constitute a committee to review the case and to then approach the Sindh Katchi Abadis Minister on the matter, while Jamudur Awan said the opposition stood for ‘Roti, kapra and makan’, but wanted this regularisation reviewed. The resolution was passed by a majority vote.
Earlier in the day, the house also passed a unanimous resolution condemning the killing of prominent religious scholar Allama Sarfaraz Naeemi in Lahore in a suicide bombing last week.
Matters pertaining to the law and order situation, and water shortages in various areas of the city, were also discussed.
With the agenda unfinished, Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil adjourned proceedings in the absence of the opposition until 4.30pm on Thursday.