1979 Local Government system can be amended: Durrani
Agha Siraj Durrani has invited all opposition parties for talks over the 1979 LG system.
KARACHI (Dunya News) - Sindh Assembly Speaker, Agha Siraj Durrani said Wednesday that the 1979 Local Government System was not set in stone and could be amended.
Durrani after making this statement invited all opposition parties for talks over the 1979 LG system.
The 1979 LG system was enacted into law on Monday and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) provincial government restored the administrative districts of Karachi.
The main opposition party in the provincial Assembly, Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) rejected the decision to revive the 1979 LG system voicing their demand for the 2001 system.
The Sindh government on Monday issued a notification for the total imposition of the local bodies system all over the province under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance-1979.
Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon said that a notification had been issued by the provincial government’s Local Government department so that local bodies’ institutions would be fully established under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance-1979.
He said although the Sindh Local Government Ordinance-1979 had been revived earlier this year by the previous Sindh Assembly, yet certain local bodies institutions were yet to be restored fully in accordance with the 1979’s local bodies ordinance.
Sources in the Sindh government said that complete implementation of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance had become necessary for the revival of municipal corporations in the three main cities of Sindh other than Karachi.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Tuesday rejected the revival of local government system 1979 in Sindh. The announcement was made during a press conference in Karachi.
Condemning the move, Kunwar Naveed of the Rabita Committee at a press conference, demanded the Sindh government to bring back the 2001 local goverment system. “By enforcing the 1979 system, the PPP has taken away the rights of the representatives of the common people and left the people at the mercy of commissioners and deputy commissioners.”
He said that the through the local system of the Zia regime, the administrative, financial and political rights of the local body authorities has been snatched by the Sindh government.
Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities have become garbage dumps as the authorities don’t have money to pay to their workers, he added.
Voicing their demand, Naveed said they want the 2001 system to be in place so that Sindh is divided into city, town and union councils, and through nazims and UC heads, the problems of the people are addressed and their issues are resolved.
He said that they would raise this issue in the parliament and take legal course.
“The politicians are not in favour of common people getting elected in these local government bodies and solving the problems of their region,” said the MQM leader.
“The local government system was first introduced by Ayub Khan, then Ziaul Haq in 1979, followed by Pervez Musharraf in 2001. Ironically, the LGS law was always imposed by the dictators but the democratically elected assembly never took the step of implementing this law.”
