Daily Times

Sir: In many countries mayor is the highest ranking official in a municipal government. According to the constitution of Pakistan, the mayor or the deputy mayor are the heads of local government. In case of Karachi, the Karachi local government consists of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation which is subdivided into 6 District Municipal Corporations (DMCs) which are headed by a chairman and a
deputy chairman.

After 6 years of absence of local government, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered Provincial governments to restore Local Government and elections were held in Karachi on 15th of December 2015. MQM won the majority seats for councillors as they managed to win 258 seats out of 410. After that huge victory, MQM nominated Waseem Akhtar as mayor. But after few days of nomination, Waseem Akhtar was arrested from the court because of the cases reported against him related to the incident of 12th May 2007, as he was the Interior Minister of Sindh at that time.

On 24th August 2016, Waseem Akhtar was elected as the mayor of Karachi and Dr. Arshad Vohra was elected as deputy mayor. Waseem Akhtar is in the custody of Sindh Police and it looks like he is going to lead the city from jail. But it should not happen, as the situation of Karachi is worse than ever and it needs a working mayor to make it better.

Waseem Akhtar should ask the court to be released from the custody of police on surety of ceding himself back to the police after the completion of his tenure as the mayor of Karachi. Moreover, he should appeal against the new Sindh Local Government act 2013, which has taken away major departments, authorities and revenue generating bodies from the new mayor such as Karachi Water and Sewage Board, Karachi Building Control Authority, and Karachi Development Authority. I hope that Sindh High Court releases him for the betterment of Karachi.

SYED MUHAMMAD AHSAN ALI

Karachi