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| July 26, 2006 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 29, 1427 |
Need for power devolution to provinces urged
ISLAMABAD, July 25: Pakistan Muslim League secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Syed has stressed that the principle of devolution of power should not be confined to devolution from the provinces to local governments only, but it should be implemented from the centre to the provinces as well.
He said the government was willing to create consensus before amending Hudood laws and for this purpose, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had chaired a meeting on Monday evening which had also been attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Speaking at an international symposium on “Role of civil society and political parties in future development”, organised by the National Reconstruction Bureau at a hotel here on Tuesday, Mr Syed said the local government system had changed the power structure of bureaucracy.
Referring to the 1973 constitution which ensures provincial autonomy, he said debate on provincial autonomy had been reopened and added that efforts should be made to take a decision on the issue.
He said the government was working to devolve power from the centre to the provinces and referred to formation of a parliamentary committee on the subject for Balochistan.
Mr Syed said he was heading one of the two sub-committees of the parliamentary committee, which was dealing with development of Balochistan.
He said that of 35 recommendations of his sub-committee, the government had started implementation on 30.
The PML leader claimed that for the first time, bureaucracy had become subordinate to elected representatives at the local level.
He said the local government system had decentralised power and now decisions on issues relating to education, health and other basic amenities were being taken at the local level.
He said the federal government had never tried to destabilise the NWFP government unlike the past when opposition parties’ governments in the provinces were toppled by the centre.
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