Karachi: Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab has questioned national development priorities, saying Karachi’s money should not be used to develop Lahore while Karachi continues to face major infrastructure needs. Speaking to the media, he said Pakistan’s development thinking needed to move beyond what he called a “GT Road mindset”, while stressing that he had no objection to Lahore’s development itself.
Wahab also referred to roughly Rs450 billion being spent on what he described as a Bahawalpur motorway project. Official federal records, however, identify the relevant scheme as the Lahore–Sahiwal–Bahawalnagar Motorway. The National Assembly was told in August that its revised PC-I stood at Rs406.914 billion, while an earlier parliamentary committee had discussed the project at approximately Rs465 billion.
His broader argument was about the distribution of public development resources. However, there is an important distinction: Pakistan’s federal taxes enter a divisible pool and provincial shares are distributed through the National Finance Commission framework. The available fiscal documents do not establish that money collected specifically by Karachi’s municipal government is being directly transferred to Lahore projects.
Official information also shows that financing for the Lahore–Bahawalnagar motorway involves a mix of government funding, NHA resources, potential PPP financing and other funding options, rather than a documented direct transfer from Karachi’s municipal revenues.
