Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi chairing the 38th meeting of the CCI at his official residence in the federal capital. SCREENGRAB: EXPRESS
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi chaired the 38th meeting of the CCI – the last meeting of the constitutional body under him – at the Prime Minister House.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, chief secretaries and senior officials attended the meeting.
Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif was in Lahore meeting his elder brother while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was busy attending the provincial assembly session in connection with the passage of the Fata reforms bill.
The meeting deferred and left the matter to the next elected government to decide.
According to sources in attendance of the meeting, opposition from all the provinces – Sindh in particular – forced the federal government to step back.
The setback has come at a time when the government was all set to get the census results passed through the CCI for which it had called the meeting exclusively – barely five days before the assemblies were completing their five-year tenure.
Headcount finalised sans third-party audit
“It has been decided in principle that the matter should be left for the upcoming government to decide about the census results,” said a senior official of the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC).
He added that all stakeholders agreed at the end that the matter was too big to decide in such a ‘short’ time.
“It was agreed that let the new government decide with fresh consensus and coordination with provinces,” said the official, who attended the meeting.
The committee also agreed that since parliament has already passed the 24th amendment to allow the election authorities to carry out delimitations on the basis of the provisional census results, so it will not impact the upcoming elections.
On Saturday, former PPP senator Taj Haider expressed concerns over holding the CCI meeting. In a statement, he said it was in contravention to the earlier agreement PM Abbasi had signed on the same forum to hold third-party audit of the census on November 24, 2017.
On August 25, 2017, the CCI approved the provisional results of the census – conducted in March-May 2017 – that puts the country’s population at 207 million.
The government was unable to go ahead with the third-party validation due to procedural, technical and legal hindrances. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has been telling parliament that due to time and other constraint it could not do the validation.
“Sindh has come prepared for the CCI meeting, as CM Murad Ali Shah confidently talked about the issue,” said a source.
“Since the government has not fulfilled its promise, it cannot announce the results,” the source quoted the chief minister as saying.
After holding discussion for over an hour, the source said, keeping in view the reservations expressed by the provinces, the government decided to restrain from acting further.
The Sindh chief minister asked the government why it was in a rush to get the census results approved five days ahead of completion of its tenure.
“Sensing that the meeting lacks a consensus, the topic was closed,” the source said.
Water issues
As the Iftar time was approaching, officials from the Ministry of Water Resources briefly shared the current status of water in the country.
Provincial and federal representatives of the Indus River System Authority were also present.
Here again, Sindh complained about not getting its due share and criticised Irsa for not giving a clear picture about the water situation in the country.
The Irsa officials stated that despite the country facing water shortage, Sindh was getting its due share. That prompted both sides – Irsa officials and Sindh – to go into arguments.
However, the CCI decided to form a committee to resolve the matter. It would be headed by the attorney general of Pakistan. Each province will have its representative in the committee which will submit its report over the issue in next meeting.
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