PESHAWAR: The provincial cabinet on Wednesday approved an important amendment proposed to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013 under which the nazims of district, tehsil and town councils would be elected by majority of the total members of the councils instead of the members in attendance.

Briefing journalists after the cabinet meeting, Minister for Information Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani said that in case of any dispute, the election process could be held three times within a period of three weeks.

The cabinet meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.

If any of the members fails to prove majority within the specified three weeks time then the relevant district, tehsil and town council will automatically stand dissolved. The nazim of district council will be called ‘nazim district government’.

Now nazim will be elected by majority of council members, not by only those in attendance

In the past, the provincial minister for local government was member of finance commission but now he will be its co-chairman.

Similarly, the government also approved amendment to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission Act, 2014, which would be considered implemented from the first day of Jan 2014. The amendments will also be assumed implemented from the same day.

Under the amendments, none of the lower courts will be authorised to issue release order of any suspect, arrested by Ehtesab Commission, or reduce the punishment of a convicted person.

Under these amendments, the government can declare any place a police station. In case of emergency, the director general of the commission or any of his authorised officers could declare a place a police station or sub-jail, the minister said.

Mr Ghani said that under the law, court would have to decide any of the cases within three months. The cases would be heard on daily basis and none of the cases could be adjourned for more than seven days.

The government, the minister said, also decided to regularise the 290 contractual employees of Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation which would be approved through legislation in the next session of the provincial assembly.

He said that the foreign-funded project had been launched for five years in 2003 which was extended for one year (till 2009). He said that the employees could be regularised on need basis and majority of them were vaccinators.

Mr Ghani said that transport department was established in 2008 which was assigned with several duties including issuance of driving licences and it had requested the police department to hand over entire staff, machinery and record but the plan could not be materialized.

The minister said that following recommendations of the home and tribal affairs department on April 22, the chief minister empowered the transport department to issue all the heavy driving licences while the police department was empowered to issue only non-commercial driving licences till Oct 30, 2016.

Similarly, the cabinet also approved amendment to Partnership Act, 1932 wherein the registrar concerned would have to get all the documents verified through security agencies, in case a partner is foreigner. In case of violation, the relevant official will have to undergo imprisonment for three months and pay a fine from Rs 10,000 to Rs500,000.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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