From the basic needs of his citizens like water, drainage to the high tech infrastructure, he set his city up in the parameter of this global growth, he took on the challenges, avail the opportunities and worked thru them like a great sculptor.
This management of people and resources greatly contributes to the fact that he has done his MBA from University of Wales in UK and under graduate studies in Malaysia. He did his early education in Karachi. He applied his management skills in running the city in a very efficient way. The attributes can be easily identified in the style of execution and delegation, which the city had never experienced.
His roots being a common man of Karachi and belonging to a middle class family contributed a lot to his understanding of the basic problems faced by the citizens of Karachi. He took on the challenges to bring water and sewerage, which are the basic necessities of a city, as it had been a problem for decades in Karachi and delivered on it. He never distinguished between political lines and took on Karachi’s issues as one irrespective of anyone’s alliance with different political party. He relates to people very well and has tried his level best to satisfy the needs of every citizen of Karachi.
Before becoming the mayor, he was the IT Minister for Sindh for the period from 2003 to 2005. His involvement in the IT field was just as exciting, it is said that when Syed Mustafa Kamal became the IT Minister, he took on the ministry with a lot of enthusiasm and created so many new initiatives for the IT in Sindh that it grew tremendously. He travelled overseas from UAE, UK, Malaysia, USA and other destinations to promote his department and showed investors opportunity to come and invest in Sindh. The entire province saw a huge influx of investment from overseas with emerging new ideas and concept were materialized. He introduced the phenomena in transfer of BPO Industries which is doing very well in Karachi.
He initiated lot of Hi-tech programs and is in process to turn the entire city government into E Government. He has successfully laid the ground to build a 10000 seat call center which will also be the tallest building in Pakistan. He revolutionized the medical facilities by building state of the art Trauma Centre, meeting all international standards at Abbassi Shaheed Hospital, a new Fully Equipped Heart Care Center. Both these Institution cater to the poorest of the poor of Karachi as they also provide treatment free of cost. New health facilities were erected in different part of the city to help the poor and the needy.
In addition to the above, he has successfully launched the first of its kind Command and Control Center in Pakistan, at par with any international video surveillance facility for Karachi. It is situated in the main building of City District Government and equipped with latest surveillance technology. It is on Wimax technology with fiber optic backup. It is manned round the clock with 40 surveillance and technical staff monitoring each and every move on the Corridor I & II. It will help in smooth traffic flow and also assist to maintain Law & Order and substantially decline street crimes in the city, the recording facility also help the Law Enforcing Agencies to investigate after crime scene. He has built three bridges and three underpasses as signal free Corridor-I in the record making time of eight months starting from Karsaz and ends at SITE area, and the distance covered in one and half hours reduced to fifteen minutes. Corridor-II is another signal free passageway that is near to its completion, which will cut the distance and congestion of traffic quite dramatically. A remarkable achievement and for the first time in history of Karachi a Master plan- 2020 for the city has been prepared under his aegis. This was a very difficult task as the city was built first and then the master plan was designed. So coming up with all the strategies and planning for the future one had to keep the existence and work around it, yet don’t compromise the essence of what needs to be achieved. This way the city will grow according to a design and not by demand as it use to before without having proper drainage and water system in place. He has provided running water to small islands of Baba and Bhit that had no water for the past 300 years. This was made possible via water supply pipe under the sea by a Dubai Based Firm since no company in Pakistan had expertise to do so.
As such there was no proper system for a common citizen to lodge complaints on civic issues for last six decades, Keeping the frustration of the people, an unique idea was perceived by the Mayor of Karachi, resulting Citizen Complaint Information System (CCIS) came into being, to cater the need of the citizens on one window interface between the citizen and the devolved departments of the City District Government, facilitate the common citizen to lodge their complaints on 1339 on 24/7 basis and get their complaints resolved. Under the auspices of Mayor Karachi, the CCIS acquired higher service standard, satisfaction of long neglected citizens and ensure credibility and continuity of the current systems and processes, the International certification Agency (Lloyds. UK) has awarded ISO-9001 Certification. In order to meet disaster or emergency, he established City Ambulance & Rescue Emergency Services (CARES) with emergency call 1122 comprising on 20 ambulances at the first phase, fitted and equipped with latest technology. With all these accomplishments he kept a good balance of promoting his city.
He has bought in lot of investors from abroad. They have invested in small and big projects alike, ranging from small factories to desalination plant. He is the only mayor that had the honor of receiving dignitaries and diplomats from all over the world. He has the honor in receiving Congressmen and Congresswomen, Deputy Secretary of State Mr. Negroponte and Ambassador for Southeastern Asia Mr. Richard Boucher from the State Department, as well as high ranking officials from UK and other developing countries. He is the only Mayor of Pakistan that has been interviewed by CNN state department correspondent in Washington DC. He is well appreciated by the diplomatic circle and they all commend the work that has been done in Karachi under the aegis of Syed Mustafa Kamal. One of his favorite saying is “Seeing is believing”, truly underlines his belief that he delivers projects from conception to completion.
All in all, it is very difficult to put all his accomplishments in words as his ability to get the best in you, is truly the miracle he has created in which every City Government employees delivers his best. His dynamic personality and his charisma have motivated not only the city employees but the citizens of Karachi, who thrive to make their city just as vibrant as their Mayor. This attitude of the citizens of Karachi has never been witnessed before nor has anyone in the past bought this kind of drive and passion as Syed Mustafa Kamal to Karachi.
