Pandemonium in Sindh Assembly

The remarks of the leader of the opposition belonging to the MQM on handing over of parks management to a multinational firm sparked off a pandemonium in the Sindh Assembly on Monday. Sindh Local Government Minister Jam Khan Shoro and MQM's Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan also blamed each other for China-cutting of parks and other government lands.
Khawaja Izhar, the opposition leader in the house, said that the Sindh government's notification regarding parks to be administered through multinational companies was an intervention in the affairs of local councils' representatives. Citing the notification issued by the Chief Minister on November 25, 2016, he said that the government had taken a big decision without consulting the KMC and the DMCs.
He said it was tantamount to 'usurping' the powers of local bodies' representatives by the Sindh government. He suggested that the Sindh government should have taken the elected local bodies on board make them 'part and parcel' of its development plans. "The Sindh government is seizing the powers of elected mayor and deputy mayor, instead," he said, fearing that said policy left local councils worthless.
MQM's veteran, Syed Sardar Ahmed, said that there was a law that if NGOs intend to adopt a park, they could be handed over its management but to take away all parks administration from local government departments was totally unjustifiable. He said that the taking away the power of elected representatives of local government was not a democracy. He warned that MQM would go to the court against this move.
Replying to the MQM, Jam Khan Shoro said that giving parks under private company's control was not a general policy of the government. He asked what was wrong if an NGO expressed its interest to run the management of a park and government allowed them. He accused the MQM of China-cutting (a term for plotting on encroached land). He also blamed MQM encroached all park in the city'. He said that the MQM had controlled all the local bodies departments in 2012 then why it had not moved to develop the recreational venues.
He said that the China-cutting had continued when the MQM was in control of all the civic departments and "everyone knows who did it." He said that the Sindh Local Government Department had always consulted with the concerned organisations adding that such a consultation on a solid-waste management project was also under way.
In the past also, several parks had been handed over to the NGOs since their conditions were decaying, he told the house adding that "the multinational companies and NGOs do approach the government to seek to manage the affairs of parks without making any profits through its administration. So what is wrong with it?" Earlier, Khawaja Izhar drew the speaker's attention towards the NEPRA's move to permit reduction in the electricity tariffs by Rs 2.6 per unit for entire country except Karachi. He was of the view that the NEPRA's was an 'anti-Karachi' move. The assembly session was prorogued.