LAHORE: The Punjab government is planning to seek a court relief against a recent order by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) stopping all provincial and the federal governments from executing development schemes approved from April 1.

The ECP had disallowed this in a notification issued on April 11.

Sources in the Punjab government said on Tuesday the authorities concerned were considering agitating the issue on political and legal fronts because it had hindered what the government thought were its last ditch efforts to reap what it had been sowing for people in the last five years. They said the issue would be agitated on the grounds that it would lead to lapse of funds, and harm public interest. The ban would also escalate project costs in future.

The sources said that a team of government officials was working out the forum that could hear an appeal against the ECP decision. The issue could also be agitated through a writ in the Lahore High Court, an official said. They said various ministers had already started highlighting impact of the ban.

Besides banning recruitments other than by the public service commissions, the ECP had directed that all development schemes approved from April 1 such as installation of gas pipelines, supply of electricity, roads’ carpeting, water supply schemes etc shall not be executed by the federal, provincial and local governments. Moreover, the federal, provincial and local governments shall not issue tenders of such schemes till conclusion of the general elections 2018.

The election commission had also directed that “diversion of funds already allocated to various development projects in the country is banned forthwith and the spending of funds so diverted shall stand frozen forthwith”. It had said that recruitments and the development schemes were to influence election results.

It had stated that it had “considered the repeated concern of the people as expressed and voiced in the national press that money allocated to various important development projects in the country is being diverted to the development schemes of constituencies, is nothing short of yet another facet of pre-poll rigging which if not checked and brought to an immediate end is likely to influence the electoral process adversely and thus sending an extremely wrong message to the public at large, making the election tainted and falling short of the constitutional provisions contained in Article 218(3) of the Constitution.

“It has become imperative that the commission may take all necessary steps under the law to prevent any action on the part of the federal, provincial and local governments that amounts to influencing the results of upcoming general elections by depriving candidates from having a level-playing field,” the ECP notification had said.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2018