Karachi City Council to meet next week to approve key WB-funded infrastructure, water projects

KARACHI: After almost four months, the City Council is set to meet next week to discuss and approve a host of World Bank-funded projects in the metropolis, it emerged on Friday.

Sources said that the approval by the City Council was required for ‘legal protection’ to be provided by the local and provincial administrations.

Besides, they said, as Karachi Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab had been elected unopposed as a union committee chairman in Ibrahim Hydery Town and is likely to win from another UC in Gizri in the Sunday by-election, he is set to take oath in the upcoming City Council session scheduled to be held on Nov 10.

A top official told Dawn that the City Council session that had been convened for Nov 10 would take up multiple issues.

Mayor Wahab likely to take oath as UC chairman in Nov 10 session

The session, he said, could also witness the oath-taking of Mayor Wahab as an elected member of the City Council, which is a mandatory requirement to retain his office.

Recently, the mayor met WB officials and expressed his desire to work with the international agency on the city’s development projects.

The mayor assured the WB officials that the bank’s investment in the projects and other matters would be given a legal protection as the same would be approved by the City Council.

Speaking to Dawn, Mayor Wahab said that the approval from the City Council was a requirement for the WB-funded projects in the city that mainly aimed at infrastructure development and water supply and sewerage system improvement schemes.

He confirmed that the City Council meeting was being convened on Nov 10.

Earlier on Tuesday, the opposition Jamaat-i-Islami had formally asked the municipal commissioner to convene the ‘mandatory’ City Council session as it was mandatory to hold City Council sessions on a monthly basis under the Sindh Council Rules 2016.

In July, the maiden session of the City Council had seen a noisy start as the opposition parties disrupted the proceedings as soon as they commenced.

The speeches of Mr Wahab, JI’s Hafiz Naeemur Rehman and leaders of other parliamentary parties were marred by unprecedented ruckus and loud sloganeering in the jam-packed council hall that wore a look of a fish market during its entire 40-minute proceedings.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2023