LAHORE: PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira and General Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed have made it clear that the party will not allow anyone to make any change to the 18th Amendment and the National Finance Commission (NFC) award.

In a statement issued here on Thursday, they said Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was devoid of a clear majority to run his government and whose allies were ditching him, should not talk about a constitutional amendment, which needed a two-thirds majority in both houses of the bicameral parliament.

They said PM Khan was using the 18th Amendment to cover up his ‘failures’ on various fronts; otherwise, both the PPP and PML-N had successfully completed their five-year terms without feeling that the amendment was, in any way, obstructing work of their respective governments.

Both the PPP leaders regretted that the PM, during his Sindh visit, said Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah was not devolving powers to local bodies in the province, while Imran Khan’s own government in Punjab had ‘illegally’ dissolved all local bodies and suspended the Islamabad mayor.

PPP parliamentary leader Hassan Murtaza said the federation was being weakened by the attack on provincial sovereignty.

In a statement, he said the provinces gained rights and identity through 18th Amendment while NFC award was a unanimous formula adopted by all the federating units to share national resources.

Mr Murtaza said PM Niazi was making both the 18th Amendment and NFC award controversial as ‘incompetent’ federal government was eyeing the provincial resources.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2020