Devastation caused by rains: Traders hold Karachi mayor, CM directly responsible

KARACHI: Traders have held Mayor Karachi and Sindh Chief Minister directly responsible for what they termed “cruel and stone-hearted” conduct during the ravaging recent rains in the metropolis, seeking compensation for affected businesses.

Spearheading the outcry, the All Pakistan Organization of Small Traders and Cottage Industries Karachi chapter expressed deep grief and anger over the devastation caused by the recent rains in the city.

President Mahmood Hamid, Senior Vice President Syed Liaquat Ali, Vice President Javed Haji Abdullah, Syed Naveed Ahmed, and Usman Sharif said that despite prior forecasts of heavy rainfall, no preventive measures were taken by Mayor Karachi to safeguard citizens and businesses.

They said that as a result, areas stretching from Keamari to Sohrab Goth, Gulshan-e-Iqbal to Saadi Town, and Landhi were inundated with five to ten feet of water, submerging markets and residential neighbourhoods. Traders and residents suffered losses worth billions of rupees, while no official arrangements have yet been made to drain the stagnant water. Whatever little work has been done, they added, was through self-help or support of NGOs.

The trader leaders said that while Karachi’s citizens were drowning and their savings were being destroyed due to mismanagement and corruption, the mayor was busy in photo sessions, dressed in starched clothes, delivering “all-is-well” speeches that rubbed salt into the wounds of the public.

They questioned why Karachi, which contributes 70 percent to the federal exchequer and 95 percent to the provincial government, is subjected to such merciless treatment.

The leaders pointed out that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) already collects millions in taxes from the people and traders, yet the present mayor, after assuming office, imposed an additional burden. Initially, all citizens were charged a municipal tax of Rs450 per month, but without approval it was increased by Rs300 to Rs750 per month, collected through electricity bills.

With 3.8 million K-Electric consumers, the mayor is forcibly extracting Rs285 crore annually from citizens’ pockets, they said. Despite such heavy taxation, they lamented, not a single benefit is reaching the poor or the taxpayers during calamities like the recent rains.

The trader representatives demanded that immediate arrangements be made to drain water from markets, and that an assessment of traders’ losses should be carried out so they can be compensated.

They further called for judicial investigations into the failure to clean Karachi’s drains, the washing away of the multibillion-rupee Shahrae Bhutto, and the collapse of the first section of Hub Dam, which was destroyed soon after its Rs12 billion inauguration.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025