PPP gets into the nitty-gritty of the LG system

KARACHI:

The provisions in Pakistan Peoples Party’s draft bill pertaining to local governance are almost identical to those found in the old system of 1979.

The party has submitted the bill to its coalition partners, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F). It states that metropolitan or municipal corporations, municipal committees and district councils will be established. There will be a mayor and deputy mayor, both of whom will be in charge of the metropolitan corporations. Elections will take place for the post of chairmen of the district municipal corporation, municipal corporations and district councils.

Union councils will be established in rural areas and union committees will be set up in urban areas. Each union council will be made up of a village or a number of villages and will have a maximum population of 25,000. The union committees will comprise an urban area within a metropolitan or municipal corporation and will have a maximum population of around 75,000. The town committee, which will encompass the union committees, will have a population over 10,000, but not exceeding 50,000.

According to the draft, any urban area with a population of over 50,000 would be made into a municipal committee, while a municipal corporation would have a population ranging from 250,000 to 2.5 million. With reference to the criteria of how and what to declare as a metropolitan corporation, the draft suggested that the corporation could be constituted in any city with a population exceeding 2,500,000.

The draft said that the government may remove a mayor, deputy mayor, chairman or vice-chairman from the post if the individual violates the criteria of eligibility for that particular job or engages in the abuse of power.

The PPP has also suggested that a provincial finance commission be set up under this system. It will decide about formula for the distribution of grants to the local councils and will handle matters related to their finance. The minister for local government will be the chairman of the finance commission, and two members of the Sindh Assembly will be appointed as members of the committee- one by the leader of the house and one by the leader of the opposition.  Apart from this, two qualified technocrats will also be members of the commission.

On the other hand, the MQM has presented its own draft, which suggests that  18 towns in Karachi be kept intact and said that the police should be given control of the city government. Official sources said that MQM has suggested that control of the revenue and police powers to lord mayor, which is the  name they have suggested for the mayor of a city.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2011.