KARACHI: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari advised the city’s businesspeople to approach him with their complaints, following a trader’s jest a few days prior about trading the chief executive of Punjab for the chief minister of Sindh.
Prominent businesspeople in the city were invited to a lunch held by Mr. Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday, where he urged them to establish a long-term collaboration with the Sindh government.
A shopkeeper from Karachi made fun of the idea of replacing Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz Sharif with Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah during a meeting with Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal last week.
Mr. Bhutto-Zardari, however, defended the performance of his party and reminded Karachi’s shopkeepers of the circumstances that existed before to 2008, when the PPP took power.
requests that the business community identify those engaged in corrupt activities and that the Sindh CM establish a dedicated complaint handling cell.
People are no longer being threatened or extorted, he claimed, drawing a comparison between law and order then and now.
“Everyone is conducting business in peace, and no one is forcing factory workers to attend public meetings by closing businesses,” Mr. Bhutto-Zardari asserted.
The chairman of the PPP assured businessmen that his party had never asked them for money or extortion.
“If you have any complaints about me, you should let me know today. Have I ever bothered you? Therefore, why would I want someone else to harass you in my name or in my government’s behalf?” he asked.
He said the government was in charge of handling these complaints and gave the Sindh chief minister instructions to set up a special cell of the Anti-Corruption Establishment and police to deal with the matter, seemingly in response to the business community’s worries about alleged corruption in provincial departments.
He asked the businesspeople to identify the corrupt officers.
Speaking about the Sindh government’s public-private partnership model, Mr. Bhutto-Zardari said the program was an example of how to boost the economy and give people opportunity.
A news statement from Bilawal House’s media cell stated that the PPP chairman urged the business community to develop “win-win projects” to advance green energy and enhance infrastructure.
According to him, Sindh is the only province with a number of successful public-private initiatives.
He emphasized that the same technique might be used to address Karachi’s issues.
Mr. Bhutto-Zardari emphasized the need for more private investment in the wind and solar industries, adding that no other province could produce as much electricity as Sindh.
According to the PPP chairman, most areas were still experiencing 18-hour power outages despite the federal government’s claims that loadshedding had been eradicated.
According to him, Islamabad sets its electricity rates without consulting the province government or the business community. “Such policies are a burden on you and me.”
He said that, in accordance with the PPP model, the Sindh government will assume control of the power distribution businesses (Discos) that the federal government had privatized.