By Ahmad Fraz Khan
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly on Thursday passed the Local Government (Amendment) Bill, empowering the government to immediately end the term of existing bodies, create an election authority to conduct polls and appoint administrators in place of nazims.
It also rejected some 22 amendments moved by the opposition, triggering a walkout towards the fag end of the session.
The new act, which carried some 21 amendments (including sub-clauses), has given the provincial government the authority to instantly abolish the current setup, which otherwise could have survived till the arrival of newly-elected local representatives.
The Punjab government, to the much annoyance of the opposition, can now create a new “election authority” led by a person who has been a judge of a high court or qualifies to be appointed as such.
The new head could also be a person, who has, or is, serving the government in Grade-20 or above. The new authority would not only conduct elections, but also notify the same.
The newly appointed election authority has also been given 180 days to “finalise the date for new elections.”
Law Minister Rana Sanaullah defended the bill despite the presence of the Mminister for Local Bodies Dost Muhammad Khosa.
The PML-Q Opposition was given enough time to discuss and defend all 22 amendments, but the government did not accept any of them, forcing the Leader of the Opposition, Chaudhry Zaheer-ud-Din, to stage a walkout.
Talking to newsmen, Ch Zaheer-ud-din was of the view that if the government could not accept even the ‘most logical’ amendments to the bill and wanted to bulldoze everything on the basis of its numerical strength, there was no point sitting in the assembly.
“A walkout is a democratic way of registering a protest and that is what we are doing right now,” he told media outside the assembly.
His colleague had earlier made passionate appeals to the Treasury to look at the bill on merit rather than blindly following the party line. But, they could not persuade their governmental colleagues to change stand.
Answering Opposition’s objections that the bill, in its current form, clashed with the Constitution that spoke of “elected representatives and election commissions,” Rana Sanaullah said that the opposition was stretching constitutional clauses to suit its political purposes.
“Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that the election commission would hold local bodies’ elections. It speaks only about holding of National Assembly and provincial assemblies, not local polls.”
Source: Dawn
Date:2/5/2010
