29 April 2005	Friday	19 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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LAHORE, April 28: Besides recommending administrators for managing local governments during their forthcoming elections, all the provinces have proposed appointment of inspectors to enforce municipal laws particularly to arrest rampant inflation and check encroachment.

The provinces have made the proposals while suggesting amendments to the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, which will be made only after an approval by the president.

According to official sources, the president was expected to approve the amendments shortly after which the provincial governors would promulgate ordinances to incorporate them in the original law. “The NRB has no objection to these proposals,” they said here on Thursday.

If approved, they said, the administrators would be appointed by the chief secretaries of all the provinces. They might be the sitting DCOs or TMOs, or other officials in the provincial governments. The DCOs and TMOs would continue to discharge their duties if other officers were appointed administrators in their districts and tehsils.

“The selection of officials for the administrators will be made on merit,” the officials said, agreeing that the chief secretaries implement policies of the provincial governments, headed by the chief ministers.

They said the demand for the appointment of inspectors had been made after the federal government had rejected an earlier proposal to appoint executive magistrates in the local governments to control prices of daily-use items and evils like encroachments, food adulteration and illegal construction of buildings.

“We have now proposed appointment of inspectors so that the local governments could obey the orders of the prime minister to check prices of daily-use commodities, which have sky-rocketed for lack of any administrative mechanism,” the sources said.

They said the provincial government would frame rules to specify method for the recruitment of such inspectors, and their powers after an amendment to the law.

They said if the suggested amendments were approved, district and tehsil nazims and naib nazims would contest elections separately. The nazims would be elected according to the previous procedure while the naib nazims by the respective houses of the district and tehsil governments.

They said the union council nazims would lose their office if a vote of no-confidence was passed against them by a two-thirds majority of their councils. Under the existing arrangement, no nazim could be removed from his office during the past four years despite the passage of no-confidence motion by a council because it required an approval by the neighbourhood council. Now, such approval would not be required.

The number of UC councillors would be reduced from 20 to 13m they said.

The local government ordinance would provide for action against any nazim or councillor found guilty of misconduct. At present, there is no such provision in the law and the district nazim could only be removed after an approval by a two-thirds majority of the Punjab Assembly. Now such powers would be enjoyed by the chief minister instead of the assembly.

The meetings of the district and tehsil councils would be convened and chaired by the nazims and not by the naib nazims, who would only conduct the house in the absence of the former. They would be like the speaker and deputy speaker of the provincial assemblies.