Speakers oppose rolling back 18th amendment

'Capacity of the provincial governments needs to be enhanced to deal with the devolved subjects of education, health'

ISLAMABAD:

Speakers of a virtual seminar have opposed the rolling back of the 18th constitutional amendment.

The virtual seminar on comparing the evolution of federalism in Pakistan and Australia was held on Thursday with the academia of leading universities of Pakistan. The seminar was organised by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) with the support of the Australian High Commission’s Direct Aid Programme.

President PILDAT Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, presented key takeaways from the background paper written by former national security adviser Sartaj Aziz, who could not attend the session but recommended that the call for revisiting the 18th Amendment should be discouraged.

He said that instead, the capacity of the provincial governments needs to be enhanced to deal with the devolved subjects of education and health. He said that the duplication of efforts should be avoided between federal and provincial governments in areas such as health, agriculture and population planning.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2022.