Pindi’s local bodies hamstrung by Punjab govt

Having been starved of cash, local representatives now excluded from official meetings

RAWALPINDI: Even though Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised not to dissolve the existing local governments across the province, the elected union council chairmen and mayors have been rendered ineffective by the provincial government.

Though no official notification has been issued in this regard, the mayor, union council chairmen and town committees are no longer invited to attend meetings of the district administration with the ministers.

Neither the provincial chief minister nor the provincial local government minister has met with the local government representatives of Rawalpindi for the past four months.



This follows the ban imposed by the Punjab Local Government Department’s chief engineer on local governments issuing tenders for development projects — even for those projects which are funded by the municipal corporation’s own funds. Moreover, the provincial government has also frozen the funds it was supposed to release to the local governments.

Previously, elected local government representatives were meted a step-motherly attitude by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, even though most of the local government councils were dominated by members of the PMl-N. Now, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had disregarded them.

The Rawalpindi district council has yet to elect a chairman while Kotli Sattiyan is unique in the entire province since elections for union councils have not even taken place thus far.

With the provincial government aiming to pass its new local government system from the provincial legislature in the new year, existing local government officials are apprehensive about the premature end of their reign.

Rawalpindi Mayor Sardar Naseem Khan told Daily Express that ever since the PTI government took over, all funds for the local bodies have been frozen and funds are being released arbitrarily in select union councils.

He added that they have called a meeting of the Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation (RMC) on Tuesday where they will discuss the issues plaguing the local government body.

Naseem added that local bodies are the basic units of democracy and are representative of all political parties.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2018.