He issued policy directive at a full-dress meeting of ministers and officials at the Governor House held to review the execution of rupees 29 billion package approved by President Pervez Musharraf.
The meeting was attended by Planning and Development Minister Shoaib Bokhari, Advisors for Finance M A Jalil, Local Government Waseem Akhtar, Information Salahuddin Haider, City Nazim Mustafa Kamal. Besides, Principal Secretary Saleem Khan, senior officials from 5-Corps and principal stakeholders like PIA, Pakistan Steel, KPT, PQA, Civil Aviation, KESC, PTCL, EPB, EPZ, Railways, State Bank, commercial banks, etc also attended the meeting.
City Nazim Mustafa Kamal complained millions of rupees were already paid to utilities at least six month ago, and yet KESC and other agencies had been sitting tight over their assignments.
Since all these organisations earn money from Karachi, President Musharraf had ordered they should contribute to the development of port-city and economic hub of the country.
The federal government had promised rupees five billion, City District Government of Karachi and Sindh government each had promised rupees six billion, while remaining stakeholders pledged the balance amount of rupees 12 billion for 2004-2007.
The meeting was informed Pakistan Steel, PQA, EPZA, CAA, PIA, and Military and Cantonments out of their Rs 3,950 million pledges finalised the projects worth rupees 1,118 million.
The contribution from KPT was Rs 1,889 million, Rs 70 million from oil companies, and Rs 162 million from SBP.
During project-wise review, it was pointed out while progress on a number of projects like Rehabilitation of Mai Kolachi bypass from Shahrah e Roomi to Submarine roundabout, the feasibility and design of link corridor between 8,000 road and Shahrah e Mehran, improvement and rehabilitation of Shahrah e Ghalib were reasonably satisfactory. Several other schemes suffered from lack of co-ordination between their sponsors, civic agencies, utilities etc.
The Governor directed Principal Secretary to co-ordinate between KPT Chairman and policy-making officials of different stakeholders to gear up the pace of work.
He said people needed to be provided relief as speedily as possible. No complacency or intentional delays will be acceptable. The President of Pakistan was keen to see that Karachi developed rapidly to come up to modern standards.
He agreed with a suggestion from Mustafa Kamal that utilities should be asked to study project carefully to remove hurdles in the execution of works at various places.
The Governor took a serious note of complaints that KESC, PTCL were slow in shifting their installations from project sites, causing delays in their completion.
Likewise EPZ and Railways lacked co-ordination which had delayed work on road construction form National Highway to Shahrah e Mehran and bridge over railway crossing.
These hurdles need to be removed without delay he said adding the President had approved all mega projects. He said delays caused by lack of co-ordination needed to be promptly resolved and contractors holding up work were to be blacklisted for future work of CDGK or the Sindh government. He said the administration could not afford delays, and the pace of work too needs to be quickened.
He also directed difference of opinion between consultants of State Bank, KPT, Pakistan Steel, or any other agency ought to be resolved through mutual discussions about the nature of projects and their proper execution.