Daily Times

KARACHI: In a bid to recapture a major tax segment, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) in principle has decided on consensus of all working departments to streamline Municipal Utility and Charge Tax (MUCT) collection.

Around Rs 32 billion over a period of 10 years has been piled up on 1.295 million MUCT industrial, commercial and residential consumers in 24 different zones inKarachi.

An estimated over Rs one billion MUCT collection annually on uniform mode would soothe the ailing economy of civic entity from consumers, officials of MUCT department KMC have opined.

So far only 19,134 units have proved them as bonafide paid consumers and among them about 32 percent to 35 percent industrial, commercial and residential consumers have deposited MUCT for seeking transfer, sale, purchase and mapping of property to get no objection certificate from the concerned department, officials have informed.

In this regard, an official meeting of concerned departments with Waseem Akhtar Mayor Karachi in chair after detailed discussions and joint consensuses has decided to maintain this financial collection.

It was also decided to enhance number of such consumers and for this purpose a strategy has been put in order to augment the network of all sections of the civic entity.

Important issues discussed including daily revenue status, number of bills issued, fortnightly progress revenue meeting, actions, initiative and updates, guidelines and coordination support and not overlap function of other department of KMC.

In this connection under the directives of Mayor, a MUCT departmental first meeting would take place within a couple of days in which a joint recommendation on practical cum economical feasibility of printing of MUCT bills through KMC Printing Press, billing process, Joint Ventures firms progress, proposing legal action if needed and reasons behind failure of arrears recovery drive from a number of government, private and corporate sector units during July-June 2017 campaign would be sort out, officials have asserted.

Earlier a meeting of Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Nawaz Naseem, Municipal Commissioner KMC, Rahat Hussain Siddiqui, Chairman, MUCT City Council, Mehmood Baig, Director Finance and Account KMC, Raza Abbas Rizvi, senior Director MUCT KMC and others was held which reviewed the bottlenecks and lacking of MUCT department performance in this regard.

During recovery period, a meager amount to Rs 267.49 million has been recovered by MUCT, Raza Rizvi has informed.

Furthermore, July-June 2016-17 MUCT target for Rs one billion had also been ignored practically in the backdrop of arrears recovery move.

Former City Nazim, Mustafa Kamal had imposed MUCT in 2009 that has been remained a controversial tax and accumulated in billions of rupees.

“We are trying our best to find a proper way out in order to achieve the recovery goal but have been handcuffed on obvious reasons”, he maintained.

There are 32,624 on Division-W consumers’ head and only 523 have paid MUCT, 71,070 on North Nazimabad head and only 4,242 have paid, 84,943 of New Karachi, only 1,877 paid, 71,622 in Gulberg only 2,131 paid. 71,069 in Liaquatabad, only 628 paid, 9,211 in Jamsheed Town, only 1,474 paid, 124,317 in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, only 5,990 paid, 44,887 in Shah Faisal, only 16 paid, 57,435 in Landhi, only 2 paid, 47,312 in Korangi, only 28 paid, 48,723 in Malir, only 284 paid, zero result of 11,410 in Bin Qasim units, 34,189 in Gadap Town, only 24 paid, 75, 134 in Lyari, only 1 paid, 204,138 in Saddar Town, only 1,696 paid, 31,813 in Keamari, only 2 paid, zero of 41,283 in SITE, 34,147 in Baldia, only 1 paid, 95,646 in Orangi, only 11 paid, zero of 8 SITE in Industrial Area, 1,394 in Korangi Industrial Area, only 108 paid, 1,031 in Landhi Industrial Area, only 9 paid, 341 in Federal B Area Industrial Area, only 36 paid and 913 industrial consumers, only 9 have paid MUCT so far.

Published in Daily Times, September 17^th 2017.