Karachi is set to get a new administrator as Mayor Wasim Akhtar’s four-year term comes to an end today.
Mayor Karachi Wasim Akhtar’s term comes to an end on Monday (today) after serving as city’s local government bodies head for four years.
Wasim Akhtar took oath as Karachi’s Mayor on August 30th 2016 while he was incarcerated in Karachi Central Jail on charges of hate speech and involvement in the notorious ‘May 12 riots’ back in 2007.
During his imprisonment, Arshad Vohra – Deputy Mayor Karachi, temporarily held Akhtar’s designation and performed duties on his behalf.
As Karachi’s mayor, Wasim Akhtar oversaw the approval of three budgets for Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), Rs 27 billion for 2017-2018, Rs 26 billion for 2018-2019 and Rs 26 billion for 2019-2020.
However, his tenure was marred with tussle over authoritative powers and resources with Sindh government.
Wasim Akhtar while addressing a farewell press conferences on August 24th last week, had lambasted Sindh government, CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah along with Federal government including PM Imran Khan and Governor Sindh Imran Ismail of neglecting country’s largest revenue generating city and its people.
He noted that both provincial and federal governments have continuously failed to heed to Karachi’s woes and never even replied to several of his letters written in this regard.
Following the end of Wasim Akhtar’s tenure as Mayor Karachi, local bodies elections are expected to be held across Sindh to elect new local governments.
However, no date has yet been agreed, or announced so far for new local government elections.
As per the constitution, Sindh government has three months to hold local bodies elections.
According to sources, federal and provincial governments are mulling over the possible candidates to appoint a neutral and apolitical administrator for Karachi for the three-month interim period.
