February 25, 2007	Sunday	Safar 7, 1428

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LAHORE, Feb 24: As the Punjab government prepares itself to take the control of 147 historical monuments being transferred after a notification issued by of the Cabinet Division on Monday (Feb26), the federal culture minister opened a new controversy about the orders and called them illegal.

“Neither I nor my ministry was consulted by the cabinet division before issuing the notification and I have not seen the notification,” Federal Culture Minister Dr GG Jamal told Dawn via telephone from Islamabad.

“How could the government hand over monuments to the province without consulting my ministry?” he asked.

The cabinet division issued a notification, 3/13/93- MSW, on Friday transferring the ownership, administration and management of 150 monuments in Punjab to the provincial government along with the staff with an immediate effect.

“Whosoever has issued the notification should have asked the culture ministry before taking such a step,” Dr Jamal said, adding the federal government had given administrative control of only three monuments - Lahore Fort, Shalamar Gardens and Katas Temples - to the province.

He said he had told provincial officials at a meeting that they had to prove that Shalamar Gardens, Lahore Fort and Katas were being maintained to the satisfaction of the federal culture ministry before the federal government decided to transfer more monuments to the Punjab government.

He said the ministry’s team would soon visit Shalamar Gardens, Lahore Fort and Katas and submit a report on the performance of the provincial government. He said if the condition of those monuments was not found satisfactory, these monuments would be taken back from the Punjab government.

Federal culture secretary Saleem Gul expressed his ignorance about the handing over of monuments to Punjab. He also endorsed the minister’s point of view that no such decision could be taken without consulting the federal culture ministry.

An officer on special duty in the cabinet division, Jalil Abbas, told Dawn that the notification had been issued to implement a prime minister’s directive issued at a meeting in February last.

“The prime minister had approved the transfer of the monuments to Punjab,” he claimed.

He said that only the Punjab government had done its homework to take charge of the monuments, so the notification was issued as per approval of the prime minister he gave in 2006.

Abbas said the culture minister knew nothing about the rules and regulations.

Punjab Archeology Department director general Oriya Maqbool Jan said since the notification had been issued by the cabinet division, it should be considered legal.

Jan said Abbas was an OSD in the cabinet division and had been retained in the cabinet division only for transferring monuments. Jan alleged the ministry was resisting the transfer of federal monuments to Punjab.

Jan said the Punjab government would take over the transferred monuments on Monday.

An archeologist claimed that out of these 150 monuments, 50 had no existence. The expert said the Punjab government had already 247 monuments of its own, but had allocated no budget for them.

“With addition of monuments from the federal government, how the Punjab archeology department could maintain all these archeological assets?” he asked.