New LG bill an attempt to alienate urban people, says Kamal
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KARACHI: Describing the new local government bill as a ‘black law and a conspiracy’ of the Pakistan Peoples Party government, Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Tuesday demanded that the state must stop the PPP from taking measures that might “alienate people of urban areas of the province from the state”.
“The PPP is making tomorrow’s terrorists by taking such measures that have been alienating the people with the state. The state must stop the PPP, otherwise, those who have been pushed against the wall today may take up arms tomorrow. The PPP’s actions will only strengthen the anti-national elements,” he warned while speaking at a press conference here.
He also raised serious concerns over an amendment through which the procedure to elect mayor was changed from ‘show of hands’ to ‘secret ballot’ saying it would pave the way to ‘horse-trading’.
“In a country where senators change loyalties in the prevalent culture of horse-trading, the councillors will also be compelled to change their loyalties,” he said, adding that the PSP would take all possible steps against the current bill and the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013.
Accompanied by party president Anis Kaim Khani and other leaders, he said that his party was contacting and holding meetings with other political parties on a single-point agenda against the new LG law.
He said that the PPP-approved LG bill was in clear violation of the Constitution.
The PSP chief said all powers and resources of local governments were already vested in the chief minister and now the provincial government had occupied remaining functions of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and its departments.
He said in all developed countries the education, healthcare, infrastructure and even airports and seaports fell under the administrative control of local governments and not in the federal or provincial governments. “It is not the federal or provincial government but the local government that connects the people to the state,” he said.
Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2021
