Capital's governance future hits crossroads

Federal govt juggles two opposing proposals for ICT's LG reforms amidst political differences

ISLAMABAD:

The federal government has undertaken two parallel but paradoxical routes about the governance structure for the capital city, as one proposal seeks an empowered new administrative unit while the other pursues bureaucracy and a central government-controlled Islamabad territory.

The self-contradictory streams of these proposals are currently at different stages of approval and consultations while the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Ordinance 2026 also lapsed on Saturday after the expiry of its extended period.

The first proposal came as Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal-led committee finalised recommendations for establishing a new ICT government, either as a province or an administrative unit. Meanwhile, the ICT Local Government Bill 2026 approved by the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior with a majority vote on Thursday stands in contradiction to the former.

The Pakistan Peoples Party also opposed the LG bill, indicating its differences with the ruling PML-N. When contacted senior PPP leader Syed Naveed Qamar said that his party opposed the bill because of objections to certain clauses of the bill and some differences with PML-N on other issues.

Both the separate initiatives negate each other on principle issues. While the Ahsan Iqbal committee has proposed to have a fully empowered capital government, the approved bill reinforces the existing bureaucracy-controlled non-party basis local government.

"The government is shouting from every rooftop about an empowered local government and here they are changing the law repeatedly to avoid local government elections and also appointing administrators in place of elected representatives", said Naveed Qamar.

The Ahsan Iqbal proposal enshrines transferring all the functions to the new government except Master Planning of the city and Law and Order. On the other hand, the bill proposes that the federal government can issue binding instructions to the local government of Islamabad.

The Ahsan Iqbal committee had proposed that the existing laws, the ICT Act of 2015 and Capital Development Authority Ordinance of 1960 should be merged into a new law, the ICT Islamabad Act 2026. But the federal government has pushed for amendments in the LG law.

While responding to a question, Ahsan Iqbal said that the ICT government proposal deals with the second tier of the government, which also has a third-tier component, but the bill only relates to the third tier.

He said that the bill that the National Assembly standing committee on Interior approved was already under process. "The final decision of which law will take precedent will be made by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The ICT Government recommendations will be dispatched to the Prime Minister's office next week," he said.

President Asif Ali Zardari had promulgated the Islamabad local government ordinance in January this year to amend the 2015 law. As a result, the ECP had cancelled the scheduled local government elections. However, the Ordinance also came to lapse on Saturday.