The recently passed amendments to the Sindh Local Government Act of 2013 are under severe criticism from the political stake holders of the city as well as the civic experts. Sindh Governor Imran Ismail has also returned the bill to the provincial assembly with 10 objections.
The governor pointed out that the whatever financial independence was left with the Karachi Municipal Corporation is being taken back by the provincial government through this bill. Moreover, he also objected that the hospitals are also taken back through these amendments.
Ismail also pointed out that the mayoral election through ‘secret balloting’ will promote horse trading.
Political powers, legal experts and urban planners also believe that the recent amendments are clearly against the true spirit of article 140-A of the constitution. Article 140-A stipulates, ‘each Province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.’ The new amendment clearly defies this.
Legal aspect
The Express Tribune contacted advocate Zubair Ahmed for his legal opinion on the matter. According to Ahmed, the amendment is in sheer violation of the article 140-A of the constitution. “Article 140-A was added in the constitution after the 18th amendment. The same 18th amendment that the Pakistan Peoples Party celebrates as great political victory. However, for me, their provincial government in Sindh is the biggest negator of the 18th amendment,” he said.
“The 18th amendment was mostly about decentralisation and devolution of powers from the federal government to provincial and local governments however, the provincial governments here keep all those power that must be with the local government system with themselves,” he added.
Ahmed said that Article 140-A clearly talks about the financial and administrative independence of the local government however, according to him, when it comes to implementation, everything is the opposite here. “The local government law that was passed earlier in 2013 and the recent amendments to it are entirely opposite to what is defined in the constitution,” he said.
“These recent amendments will leave local government with very minimum power to serve, although local governance is the key since it is directly connected with the common man of the country,” he said. Ahmed added that if powers of tax collection and administrative authorities are taken back by the provincial government then the existence of local government will remain nothing more than a formality. “Provincial government should devolve the authoritarian and financial powers of civic departments to the local government otherwise the growth of common man is not possible,” he said.
Election of mayor in council
According to the new amendment, the bill proposes insertion of new section 18-b which proposes that ‘the council shall elect any person as Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chairman or Vice Chairman of the Council’.
Another flaw of the amendment the inclusion of the word ‘any person’ instead of ‘any member of the house’ in the clause. Ahmed believes that this will ensure that leaves the possibility of ‘non elected individuals’ to also become a mayor, deputy mayor, chairman or vice chairman. He added that this proposed clause is against the article 140-A which clearly mentions the word ‘elected representatives’.
Former mayor’s take
Former mayor of the city, Wasim Akhtar of MQM Pakistan rejected recent improvement by Sindh cabinet, calling it a hoax. “This is not enough to make mayor chairman of solid waste management board or Karachi water and sewerage board since the chairman will have no power or budget allocation,” he insisted. “All they do is lots of talks, what they dont want to give Karachi is its due share and budget allocation. what we are demanding is an empowered local government system according to the constitution.”
Akhtar shared that his party has decided to challenge this amendment in the court, along with organising protests all over the province. He also said that the MQM-P has decided to hold an all party conference in this regard on the 11th of December where all the political stake holders of the city will be invited to discuss these amendment which are clear violation of article 140-A of the constitution. “They have literally razed the constitution of Pakistan to the ground by making these amendments, which are clearly the opposite of what is defined in article 140-A of the constitution. The much celebrated 18th amendment of the constitution is meaningless if the purpose is to destrengthen the local government system,” says the former mayor.
Akhtar added that these policies of Sindh government are against decentralisation and devolution of powers to third tier of the government. “They are taking back functions such as health facilities, tax collections, death and birth certificates, milk supply from the municipal corporations to the provincial government. I wonder why a provincial government will deal with a matter as small as milk supply,” Akhtar added.
Other parties’ objections
PTI’s Federal Minister for Shipping Ali Zaidi termed the new local government bill as ‘anti Karachi’. “We will do everything we can to stop the enforcement of this bill. We are going to the court and we will sit at Chief Minister’s house in protest but we will not let PPP’s Sindh government go ahead with the bill,” he said.
Commenting on the bill, Zaidi added that it will open new ways for the corruption. “Its undemocratic and totally against the federation,” he said.
“The constitution talks about empowering the mayor however after this bill, the mayor is toothless. Ideally he should have the authority over all the civic departments of the city, be it Solid waste, Water and Sewerage or building control authority,” he said.
The PTI minister also mentioned a discussion held between him, and CM Sindh during a meeting of Karachi Transformation committee where CM promised devolution of powers, taking Solid waste management, and building authorities to district levels however he turned himself as dishonest. He added that, his fellow ministers Asad Umar, Amin ul Haq, officials of FWO, and cabinet members of Sindh were also present during the talk.
Over the recent development, JI's Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman said that if they are giving Mayor 'Co chairmanship' of several departments, what would this exactly entail. “This is Karachi, not Pakistan Peoples Party that it requires a powerless co-chairman,” he said, in a jibe at Sindh’s ruling party.
He added that local government system need power, a power to hire or fire when needed, power to allocate budget where needed. “Looking at the local government act of 2001 till the recent one, it seems like the devolution of powers to grass root has been on reverse gear,” Naeem ur Rehman said.
He pointed out that in 2001, all the departments related to the governance of the city were under the city government which included transport, building control authorities, waste management, health, education, revenue and water and sewerage board.
Meanwhile all these department were snatched by the provincial government from the city government in the local government act of 2013, only a few functions were left for the municipal corporation.
Rehman pointed out that whatever departments were left with KMC which also included health facilities and hospital are now taken back by the Sindh government.
He mentioned a legal notice sent to chief minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah in which the Jamat e Islami has suggested the provincial government to that there should be a ‘Mega city government’ instead of Karachi metropolitan corporation. “We have suggested that all the development authorities, i.e Malir development Authority, Lyari Development Authority, Karachi Development Authority, Sindh Master plan Authority, Karachi water and Sewerage board, Solid waste management board etc should be devolved to the ‘mega city government’ of Karachi”, added the JI’s Karachi chief.
Rehman concluded that we have also suggested different tax collections that were previously part of KMC should be transferred back to the ‘mega city government’ of Karachi.
The JI Karachi Chief warned that if a fresh bill as per true spirit of the article 140-A of the constitution of Pakistan is not presented than the party will challenge this amendment bill and as well as the local government act 2013 in violation of the constitution of Pakistan before the honourable high court of Sindh as well as the Supreme court of Pakistan.
Civil society objections
General secretary of ‘Citizens for Environment’, an NGO Dr Raza Gardezi believes that the new law is based on dishonesty. Gardezi was of the view that the law clearly exposes the corrupt intentions of Sindh government. Talking specifically about the bill, he added that it has been decided in the bill that the delimitation for the next local government elections will held according to the delimitation of 2015, which was seven years ago. He added that the population dynamic of the city has been changed therefore it a new delimitation shall be done.
He also pointed out the inclusion of secret balloting in the procedure to select office bearers will also ease the horse trading in the procedure.
Financial crisis
Gardezi said that the bill now enable government of Sindh to take back any functions of Karachi Municipal corporation that could be any specific tax collections that comes under its domain as well as taking charge of hospitals that comes under the KMC.
He added that the most important institution of the city will be left to do nothing meanwhile major functions of the local government twill be run by Sindh government which is clearly against the spirit of constitution.
He added that that local government departments are often not paid due to financial crisis, if financial powers do not remain with these department then they will undergo severe crisis.
Commenting on the procedure of electing the mayor, he added that this is sheer dishonesty with Karachi. “What do you mean by ‘the council shall elect any person as mayor or deputy mayor’? Do they want some one outside of their respective cities to become their mayor? Lets suppose an individual from Nawab Shah becoming mayor of Karachi, ridiculous,” he said.
Gardezi added that in the proposed amendments, the local taxes, rates, toll or fees leviable by the Town Municipal Corporation will be subject to such conditions as the provincial government may specify. He mentioned that the municipal corporations are already under severe financial crisis, these new amendments that snatch their power to collect tax will leave them in severe financial crunch.
Talking about another section he said that the provincial government shall have power to amend, alter, add or remove any entries from the schedules, by just a mere notification in the official gazette.
It means that any functionaries under municipal corporations can be taken under authority of provincial government, he added. I wonder what will be left for these officials of municipal corporations, fee of public toilets I guess, he added. “In short, Goodbye decentralization and devolution, Welcome Provincialization and Centralization,” said Gardezi.
Sindh government stance
Addressing a press conference after the cabinet meeting on Thursday, Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah announced a U-turn on the recently passed local government law, withdrawing the controversial amendments and accepted Sindh governor's observations on the election of mayors, deputy mayors and show of hands in local bodies elections.
The cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah also reversed the Sindh Assembly decision to transfer property tax from local bodies to excise and taxation and decided that district municipal corporation would retain its power to collect the tax.
The cabinet meeting also discussed the functions of schools, hospitals, medical colleges and milk supply and decided that provincial government will look after the educational institutions and healthcare facilities, however, the function of milk supply will be restored to local bodies. "We have made historic decisions today giving representations to transgenders and differently-abled people in local councils. They will have representation in each council.
*Several attempts were made by The Express Tribune to contact lawmakers of the PPP’s Sindh government, including Administrator Murtaza Wahab to get their version on the story but they did not respond to any correspondence.