PPP defends LG bill

MQM-P warns of laying siege to CM House in protest

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has defended the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2021, saying that the Sindh assembly will again pass the same bill to turn it into an act. At a press conference in Hyderabad on Wednesday, he complained that the governor Sindh Imran Ismail returned the bill to the assembly without signing it in order to please Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's leaders and their allies including MQM-P.

"In essence there is no need for the governor's signature after the 18th amendment." He said the assembly will pass the same bill for the second time after which it will become an act. Khuhro clarified that the union councils, union committees and the wards will continue to receive funds as per the existing practice.

Commenting on the process of the mayor's election, Khuhro said if the prime minister can be elected through the secret ballot, why is there opposition to election of the mayors in an identical way. "The mayors will be elected through the secret vote this time," he asserted. "It now depends on the people whom they elect as their mayors."

He said the provincial government is prioritizing the underdeveloped districts of Sindh where municipal corporations will be established to kick-start transformation of those areas in the urban centers. He told that Hyderabad district, which consisted of four talukas, will be divided into eight towns.

"Earlier only Karachi and Hyderabad were considered as the urban cities but now other districts are also being included in that list," he underlined. He recalled that when Hyderabad was divided into four districts in 2005 MQM-P, which was part of Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf headed government, celebrated the city's division. Similarly, Karachi was kept as a single district but the PPP's provincial government carved out new districts in the metropolis.

Read More: JI holds sit-ins against controversial LG bill

The PPP's leader contended that the local government system is a purely provincial matter after the 18th Constitutional Amendment. He recalled that the previous amendments in the LG acts were carried out after consulting the opposition parties.

Criticizing PTI's central government for inflation, poverty, unemployment and bad governance, he told that the PPP will hold a sit-in protest at Hyderabad bypass, which connects Karachi with the upcountry, December 10. A week later on December 17 sit-in demonstrations by the PPP's workers will take place outside the press clubs in all districts of the province.

MQM-P protests

Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan continued its protest against the LG bill. The party's local leaders and workers sat on a hunger strike protest outside the Hyderabad press club on Wednesday. A signature wall was also set up which appealed to the governor Sindh not to sign the bill.

"The Sindh government isn't turning the province into Sindhu Desh but Zardari Desh," said Suhail Mashhadi, former deputy mayor of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC). He argued that the bill is an attempt to turn the urban residents of Sindh into third degree citizens.

MPA Rashid Khilji said his party categorically rejected what he described as a black LG law. "This law is meant to cripple the LG representatives of the urban areas," he believed. He blamed the Sindh government for legislating laws which go against the grain of Pakistan's constitution.

The MPA said MQM-P will surround the CM house in a sit-in protest if their peaceful protests against the bill are not addressed. MPA Nadeem Siddiqui said the provincial government is trying to fool the local government representatives that the new amendment is meant to empower them but in reality the opposite is factually correct. "We won't accept this law in any way."

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2021.