Punjab Assembly: Local Government Bill delayed for a few days

Amendments made as opposition rejoins special draft committee.

LAHORE:

The government has delayed the tabling of the Punjab Local Government Bill of 2013 till Monday as the special committee set up to finalise the draft bill made further amendments on Thursday.

The Supreme Court had instructed the provincial governments to legislate to set up local government systems by mid-August and hold elections by mid-September and a hearing of the case was due yesterday.

The four opposition members rejoined committee proceedings on Thursday having boycotted meetings leading up to Eid – and largely approved the bill, though they said they still had some reservations and would not sign the committee’s report, which is to be laid in the house next week.



The 12-member committee agreed that union councils in rural areas would be renamed as village councils, while those in urban areas would be called city councils. On the composition of the Provincial Finance Commission, they agreed to remove a clause giving representation to local government members and to increase the representation of MPAs from two to five.

Local Government Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said that Thursday’s meeting was the committee’s last. He said that around 60 per cent of the suggestions made by opposition and treasury MPAs during the time the bill had been with the committee had been accepted and incorporated in the draft.

Referring to a Supreme Court hearing of the local government case that was due later that day, he said that the government would seek three more days to pass the bill, but if the court insisted on the earlier deadline, the government was prepared to push it through during assembly proceedings in the evening. If allowed the time, they would table the bill on Monday and pass it within three days. If the SC also agreed to defer the elections till December, the government would conduct a fresh exercise for the delimitation of constituencies.

The minister said that it was up to the opposition members to sign the committee’s report or not, or move amendments when the bill is tabled in the house. He said that apart from the few changes made on Thursday, the draft of the bill was the same as approved by the committee before Eid.

Sanaullah said that Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan had obtained copies of the draft and would introduce the same in their assemblies. He said that the bill was different from the local government laws passed in 1979 and 2001 as it provided that the Punjab government may devolve functions to local governments at any time.

The opposition members on the committee   PTI’s Sibtain Khan, PML-Q’s Hassan Akhtar Moakkal, PPP’s Sardar Shahabuddin Khan and JI’s Dr Waseem Akhtar   said though the government had approved their demands regarding the composition of union councils, municipal and metropolitan corporations and district councils, they still had reservations about the district health and education authorities, the local governments’ financial powers, and the selection rather than election of panchayat members.

They said that the bill envisaged setting up union councils in areas with populations of less than 30,000, municipal committees in urban areas with populations between 30,000 and 500,000, municipal corporations in towns and cities of up to five million, and a metropolitan corporation in Lahore, the only city in the Punjab with a population larger than five million. The opposition members said that the delimitation of union councils and municipal committees should not be done on the basis of the last census since it was 15 years old. They said that they would seek another meeting of the committee before the report is laid in the house, otherwise they would move several amendments to the bill.

The question of whether the elections would be held on a party or partyless basis has yet to be settled. Sanaullah said that this decision would be made within the PML-N. He said that a majority within the party wanted a non-party election, but a significant number were in favour of party-based polls. Some had suggested non-party elections at the union council level and party-based elections at upper tiers. He said that the bill did not bar any party from issuing tickets to their candidate.

Other bills

The Punjab Assembly unanimously passed the Punjab Service Tribunal Amendment Bill 2013 on Thursday.

Seven other bills were introduced in the house on the day. These were the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women Bill, the Punjab Payment of Wages Amendment Bill, the Employees Cost of Living Amendment Bill, the Punjab Minimum Wages for Unskilled Workers Bill, the Punjab Shops and Establishment Amendment Bill, the Punjab Workmen’s Compensation Bill and the Punjab Weights and Measures Enforcement Bill.

They were referred to a special committee of the house for deliberation. The session will resume on Friday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2013.