Commission seeks panels for coordination

ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary commission to oversee the implementation of the 18th constitutional amendment has decided to ask the provincial governments to form committees of bureaucrats and technocrats to coordinate with it.

These committees — one each from all four provinces — would work with the nine-member commission in the effort to devolve various ministries and divisions to the federating units once the concurrent (constitutional) list is abolished within a year.

At a meeting here on Friday chaired by Senator Raza Rabbani, the commission suggested to the federal government to initiate the process of follow-up legislation to give the transfer of ministries legal cover.

The landmark amendment to the Constitution passed by the parliament in April this year envisaged at least two dozen federal ministries and divisions related to the concurrent list being devolved to the provinces.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani later constituted a commission to lay guidelines for the government on how to go about this ‘technical and complicated’ legal process.

On Thursday, Gilani chaired a meeting with the provincial chief ministers and members of the commission in which the federating units demanded that the assets and funds of the ministries that are to be devolved be transferred to them by the next fiscal year.

A participant of the Friday’s meeting told The Express Tribune that the commission discussed this demand and would furnish recommendations for the government to take the process further.

In the meanwhile, a handout said that the commission discussed in detail the various amendments that will follow in the rules of procedure of federal government as a consequence of the omission of the concurrent list. The commission also discussed the effect of the omission of the concurrent list on the functions of various federal ministries.

The commission provided policy guidelines for the implementation of the process of devolution to the provinces of the items mentioned in the concurrent list.

The next meeting of the commission will be held on June 29 and 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2010.