You became the first MQM mayor of Karachi at the age of only 28. With Mustafa Kamal’s stint and Waseem Akhtar being sworn in, your party now has the third opportunity to fill this post.

Mustafa Kamal’s period was an ideal time because General Musharraf was very supportive of the local government. He had amended the laws to empower local government. But in Zia-ul-Haq’s time, when I became the mayor, local government representatives were not so powerful. So we had to work harder. But we were able to start changing the face of Karachi. The first flyovers of Karachi came up in my time from KDA and KMC.  Then when I was a local government minister, construction of other flyovers like the Lily Bridge and the one at Cantonment were initiated. Then there was the Nazimambad flyover, the Shaheed-e-Millat, Baloch Colony flyover. All these projects were begun then.

Mustafa was also able to do well in his time. He himself said that Rs 300 billion came to the budget. Now if you have Rs 300 billion, besides your own budget, no one will even audit your account. You have so much room for development. He worked on projects like stormwater drainage, some sewerage, the 100 mgd water plan. So there were visible effects and the MQM also (benefited). Mustafa Kamal himself was a good mayor, dynamic, hard-working. Just because of political differences we can’t say he was a bad mayor.

But your party groomed him. He was working from the MQM platform.

It was teamwork, and he himself was a good person, very hard-working. And of course the environment was very conducive. The home minister then was Waseem Akhtar. So he worked in very close harmony with other political groups, stakeholders, and the federal and provincial agencies which enabled us to normalize Karachi and bring down the  crime rate to lower than what it is today. Today’s  decline in crime is attributable to two-and-a-half years of the operation. But Waseem Akhtar’s time of peace was attributable to a period without any operation. So if you see the reporting of crimes  from 2002 to 2007, so you will find the same status that you have today. Relatively, no target killing.

So you believe that time was more peaceful?

That time was more peaceful. And it attracted foreign investment. The peace today is not attracting foreign investment.  One billion dollars in  direct foreign investment came to Karachi in that time.  So that means we proved our mettle. We were in the local government, we were supported by the federal and provincial government and by the governor. The entire situation was conducive to allowing the MQM to perform its best, instead of being doubted, and having every crime or act of violence attributed to us. The MQM should not be seen as part of the problem but as a part of the solution. This two-and-a-half year old operation has treated us as part of the problem.  Then the devolution of power and authority and resources of that era is needed. The 2013 law is a very redundant law.

The master plan is now the Sindh government’s baby, not the  local government’s. The Water Board is  under the Sindh government, building control is Sindh government’s. Some sweepers and sanitary inspectors and some refuse vehicles are with the mayor. Overall policy and power are with the Sindh government.

Now that Waseem Akhtar is the mayor, people will have the same expectations that they had from Mustafa Kamal. But right now, your internal party struggles also present a problem. In this scenario, with elections a year-and-a-half away, the quality of Waseem Akhtar and Deputy-Mayor Arshad Vohra’s performance becomes an important challenge.

We will execute our struggle in a number of phases. With whatever resources at our disposal, there are two or three things  we will try to deliver.

First is sanitation. We will prioritise sanitation and the remainder of the budget will be allocated to the development of roads, footpaths, and parks. We will invest money in refuse vehicles. They take one trip from Karachi to Jam Chakro to dispose garbage. We will increase this to three trips. In three months we can clean the city of Karachi. We will also introduce a sanitation system under which we will give bags to people, so that they develop a habit of collecting their garbage. This will promote civic sense as well.

Second,  260 mgd water is needed in the first phase of the K-4 pipeline. For that we need Rs 25 billion that the provincial government has not entirely released. But we will inform the KMC and Water Board that we will go ahead with it. We will take loans from banks to finance this and complete the project within one year. We want to show that things can be done even with financial constraints.

Third, for the circular train we will fast-track a dialogue with Japan to rehabilitate this project which has not moved forward in eight years. We will prepare a feasibility to rehabilitate the encroachers and then engage with the Japanese ambassador and speak to the government to try and start it up again.

We also plan to start up two new SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprise Zones). The plots have been distributed, but some infrastructure needs to be built. Its purpose is to provide employment for people and so that a productive sector is operational.

Then there’s also some work on sewerage that needs to be done.  This is one prong of our strategy but we will need six teams for six of these projects and Arshad Vohra is working on it.

The second prong is  meeting with Murad Ali Shah to engage the political government to change the local government law and to start work on the K-4 and S-3 pipeline plans that have been lying around.

The third prong is to approach the courts. The Supreme Court has a lot of observations and judgements in which they interpreted Article 140-A according to which financial, political and administrative authority can be granted to local governments.

Our fourth prong is that we will build a case in the court of public opinion as well as try to organise other mayors in Sindh and Pakistan.

The previous three steps I mentioned will be completed within a year and then we will organise a massive dharna to demand empowerment of not only the Karachi local government but local governments across Pakistan. Democracy is not complete if there is no effective democracy at the grassroots. If the nursery of democracy is not working, it is only an edifice without a foundation.

Alongside these plans and the Smart City plans we also have legislation being prepared to return to Musharraf’s Local Government bill. His version has been revived and an improved version has been synthesised by the MQM for presentation to the assemblies. This legislation will be presented as a private bill if need be.

This is our strategy and I think the people will support us because local governments are the future of democracy and the political system of Pakistan.