Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi Ameer Monem Zafar stated that the federal, provincial and local government budget made it very clear that Karachi and Karachiites were the priority of none among the ruling parties.

The JI leader expressed these views while addressing a post budget press briefing held at Idara Noor-e-Haq, the JI Karachi headquarters, on Friday.

Speaking on the occasion, he said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) regime allocated just Rs37.44 billion for Karachi out of its budget of Rs3,451 billion — a mere 1.1 per cent of the total budget.

He demanded that at least Rs500 billion be allocated for development in Karachi. Similarly, he said, each town should be granted Rs2 billion and each union council should be granted Rs20 million.

Talking about the budget by nine towns in Karachi run by the JI, he dubbed it health, education and people friendly budget. Detailing the budget in the nine towns, he said that Rs870 million were allocated for the education sector as compared to Rs520 million in the last fiscal year.

He said that an amount of over Rs310.5 million was allocated for the health sector as compared to Rs160 million in the previous year.