ISLAMABAD: Senators have expressed dissatisfaction over the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the interior ministry’s preparations for the upcoming local government elections in Islamabad. Some even went as far as to say that these elections would be “illegal” as they were being held without a proper law in place.

“The (local governments) bill is still pending in the upper house and has only been passed by the lower house,” said PPP Senator Saeed Ghani. “This is an insult to the Senate – ECP has started issuing notifications regarding delimitations and appointment of returning officers and presiding officers while the committees are still discussing the bill.”

On Tuesday, Mr Ghani submitted a privilege motion in the Senate and stressed that the notifications have been issued based on the ‘proposed ICT LG bill’.

“The authorities cannot appoint officers or notify the limits of union councils just based on assumptions or the draft of a proposed bill,” Mr Ghani said, adding, “No official action can be taken until the bill is passed by both houses of parliament and the president signs it into law.”

PPP’s Saeed Ghani tables privilege motion challenging delimitation based on ‘assumptions’

“The ordinance in this regard had expired on June 8, 2015 but the ECP notified the delimitations of 79 UCs of Islamabad on June 15, 2015,” Mr Ghani said.

The National Assembly, on February, 9, 2015, had extended the Delimitation of Constituencies Ordinance 2015 for another 120 days.

Though the National Assembly passed the bill to establish a local government system in Islamabad on March 26, 2015, it is currently being reviewed by the sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior.

Under the bill, key institutions in Islamabad will undergo structural changes as the municipal functions of both the rural and urban areas will be managed – under the new bill – by the proposed Metropolitan Corporation.

Currently, these functions are being managed by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in most of the urban areas and the ICT administration in the rural areas of Islamabad district. Under the proposed bill, CDA’s powers will be revisited and only existing development functions, which include planning, land and estate departments, will be inherited by the reformed CDA.

However, even members of the sub-committee are unclear about the bifurcation of CDA and the transfer of administration control over certain subjects to other ICT departments.

Senator Javed Abbassi said that all the ECP’s appointments so far were illegal.

“We are going to hold another meeting in a day or two; this notification by the ECP to appoint returning officers etc was illegal,” he said, adding, “We want to know the CDA’s stance on the matter and that is why the committee has called the CDA chairman to present his point of view.”

The main objection over CDA’s bifurcation is that most of the functions will be executed by the Metropolitan Corporation, including managing the water supply, sanitation, environment, parks and gardens in the capital.

This new entity will inherit around 15,000 of CDA’s 18,000 staff members and officers.

“But our concern is, who will finance this entity – where will they get the money to afford running expenditures,” asked CDA’s Union Secretary General Chaudhary Yaseen.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2015

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