Administrative decisions: K-P assembly adopts Local Govt Bill 2012

Legislators claim they are committed to local body elections.


Manzoor Ali May 08, 2012

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted the Local Government Bill 2012 that will replace Local Government Ordinance 2001.

The bill was moved by the K-P for Local Government and Rural Development Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour before the house. Bilour told the house, while tabling this bill that they wanted to conduct local body elections.

Citing the shortcomings of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s introduced system, Bilour said that it entrusted all the administrative responsibility of the district to a single person. “How can a single person oversee so many departments?” he asked.

Bilour also criticised executive powers of elected officials and said that elected representatives should not have executive authority.

Structure of the new system

The new bill is at best a mix of two previous local government systems introduced by Gen Ziaul Haq and Musharraf. The new bill has reverted the old nomenclature under Zia’s local councils and will be referred to as district councils and municipal corporations; wards in urban areas and union councils in rural areas.

However, it has left the 2001 local government rule of representation for women, labour, peasants and minorities.

The new system also replaced district government and city district government with district council and municipal corporations. There will be one municipal corporation in Peshawar and the rest of the districts will have district councils. Tehsil Municipal Administrations (TMAs) will be replaced by respective municipal committees. Similarly, there will be municipal committees for each city, other than Peshawar.

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