As locals fail, Sindh looks to China for help in cleaning city

KARACHI: The local government department was on Wednesday given three months' time by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah to sign an agreement with a Chinese firm for garbage collection from three districts of the metropolis.  

The CM, while presiding over a meeting with respect to the city’s cleanliness at the CM House, further asked to ensure the work was completed within next three months of signing the agreement. The districts identified were Korangi, East and South.

"I am proud to say that our government with the help of police, Rangers and other law enforcement agencies managed to restore peace in this megalopolis," but keeping the city clean was also no less a challenge but would soon be overcome, he added.

Qaim directed the local government minister to expedite the process and sign the agreement with the firm as soon as possible and also asked him to not insist on extending the deadline.

Minister Local Government Jam Khan Shoro informed the CM that the Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB) had issued a Letter of Intent (LoI) to two DMCs, South and East, to a Chinese firm and an agreement would soon be signed.

Costing a total $9.65 million per year for district East since it produces around 322,357 tons of garbage daily, the contract for district South would cost $14.254 million which generates 491,590 tons of solid waste.

The contract included collecting garbage from houses to dumping it at landfill sites, as well as sweeping streets. Although a seven-year contract, Shoro claimed that it would only be renewed if the concerned district metropolitan corporations (DMCs) appeared to be satisfied with the firm’s services. 

He said the company would provide baskets to every household for it to put its garbage in which would be dumped at a covered landfill site of the area and later collected and dumped at the city’s main landfill site. "This is for the first time a contract with respect to mechanical garbage collection would be awarded to a private company," he said, further claiming, that it would bring an end to corruption in the sector.

Presiding over a meeting on Monday, the Sindh chief minister had warned the Karachi commissioner and the administrator that if garbage accumulated along the roads and streets of the city was not removed within three days, action would be taken against them.

Expressing his anger over trash littered across the city, Qaim Ali Shah while presiding over a meeting said the provincial government had issued funds to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, the District Municipal Corporations, and deputy commissioners for cleaning the city and providing water to citizens through tankers but nothing had been achieved so far.