Pakistan: Traders at MQM conference deplore treatment meted out to Karachi

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) party organized a traders' conference in Sindh province to discuss the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) new local government act, which they say is stopping Karachi's economic growth.

This moot on Tuesday was held a few weeks after holding a multiparty event that rejected amendments brought about by the ruling PPP party to the local government bill in Sindh, Dawn newspaper reported.

Reading out a resolution, senior MQM leader Kanwar Naveed Jameel said that the PPP-led government in the province was hurting business, education and had taken away basic facilities of the people of Karachi.

"Therefore, the people here, specifically the business community of Karachi have come to this conclusion that they reject the new local government act. The system is stopping the city's economic growth. And the amendment to the 2013 LG law is taking control of all local government powers. It is paralyzing them," he said.

The resolution further explained how the MQM want the local government to be self-sufficient. "We want the cities to receive funds from the province like the province receives from the federal government. So stop going against this city. Give it its basic rights. Or we will keep fighting for our rights until we are given back our rights," it added.

Shedding light on the issue, MQM-P leader Khawaja Izhar ul Hasan said 70 per cent of Pakistan's economy stood on Karachi's contribution and 75 per cent of that contribution came from the trade and business community of Karachi.

"The decisions we make today will therefore be noteworthy for the betterment of Karachi," he said.

"Now we pay taxes for everything, save air. And despite so many taxes we don't have transport, we don't have garbage disposal system, we don't have clean water. There is nothing happening for anyone's good in union councils," Hasan stressed.

( With inputs from ANI )