Nasreen Jaleel demands lifting ban on councillors’ official study tours

The Sindh government should lift the ban on official study tours of local government (LG) representatives to other cities in order to forge good relations among elected representatives, City Naib-Nazim Nasreen Jalil demanded on Monday.

She was talking to a delegation of LG representatives who had recently visited Istanbul, Turkey. The delegation included Asif Siddiqui, Dr Nighat Shakil, Shabana Shabab, Shamim Akhtar, Naumanul Haq, Arshad Qureshi, Absarul Hasan, Arif Bhatti and Sher Afghan.

The delegation informed her that the local government of Istanbul was so powerful that it could even procure loans from foreign governments. The federal government of Turkey has only three departments — defence, foreign affairs, and finance — while LG governments supervise all other departments.

Jalil said that City District Government Karachi (CDGK) should also be empowered to resolve its issues and accelerate the development process. The delegation further said that Istanbul had a population of 13 million and an annual budget of US$12 billion. This Metropolitan Corporation is divided into 39 municipalities, which are headed by mayors and deputy-mayors. They said Turkey had adopted a modern vehicle tax collecting system and was also paying special attention to vocational training of its people.