ISLAMABAD: The Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) is facing difficulties in providing municipal services due to shortage offunds and incomplete rules, PML-N Senator Javed Abbasi said on Thursday.

Addressing the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, which met at Parliament House with Senator Rehman Malik in the chair, Senator Abbasi said that MCI currently has no budget and is paying for non-development expenses via loans.

If the Capital Development Authority (CDA) stops giving it loans, MCI will not be able to provide municipal services, he said.

`Our government also did what the current government is doing to the MCI,` he said, criticising the federal government for not resolving the MCI`s issues.

Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz told the committee that the proposed rules are pending for notification by the federal government since May and funds are also not being provided.

PTI Senator Shibli Faraz, who is leader of the house in opposi-tion, said he will try his best to help MCI overcome its challenges.

The mayor also held the bureaucracy responsible for the MCI`s failure. He told the committee about the organisational and financial problems of the MCI and said the CDA is not cooperating with the local government.

CDA Chairman Afzal Latif said CDA has been loaning money to MCL The committee recommended that loans to MCI should not be discontinued as otherwise people will be deprived of municipal services.

A senior interior ministry said the MCI cannot be official a vibrant body without political will. She said the interior ministry cannot notify the MCI`s rules without approval from the Establishment Division and the finance ministry.

`There is no delay on our part,` she said.

The committee chairman directed the finance and interior ministries to resolve the issue of the unapproved rules of the MCI and its differences with CDA.

Mr Malik constituted a committee to be headed by Mr Faraz to look into all the issues of the MCL