ISLAMABAD, June 5: The National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) has asked the provincial governments to appoint caretakers by July for holding local bodies’ elections in the country, a source in the NRB told Dawn on Sunday. The source said the district nazims and naib nazims would continue to work till the appointment of caretakers while all tehsils and district unions would be dissolved after the appointment of caretakers.
According to a decision of the federal government, caretakers would be selected from among senior government officials but they would have no administrative powers the administrators enjoyed in the past, the source said.
“Caretakers will be appointed next month after the Election Commission notifies the local government election schedule,” the source said.
He said it had been decided that district and session judges would act as returning officers in the LG polls.
It may be mentioned that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) had been demanding that local elections be held under the sitting nazims.
The source said the procedure of dismissal of nazims had been amended to avoid giving sweeping powers to chief ministers for taking any action against district and tehsil nazims.
Under the amended procedure, district nazims could be dismissed on the recommendations of a local government commission, instead of their removal on a provincial assembly decision.
The local government commission would consist of six members and the provincial local government minister would be its chairman with two members (one each to be nominated by the leader of the house and the leader of the opposition of a provincial assembly), two technocrats to be nominated by the government and the local government secretary.
Local government elections in Islamabad are likely to be deferred again as the ministry of interior is said to be opposed to the setting up of a local government in the capital, a source in the NRB told Dawn .
“The interior ministry is of the view that Islamabad is a sensitive city in view of the presence of diplomats and parliamentarians and setting up a LG government here would not be feasible,” the source said.
