LAHORE: The Punjab Local Government Act (PLGA) of 2019 has automatically been restored as the Punjab Local Government Ordinance-2021’s (PLGO-2021’s) second 90-day life completed, leaving the predecessor PTI government’s long-drawn efforts to amend the law in vain.

As the local governments formed under the PLGO 2021 have also been dissolved, the Punjab government has appointed administrators of respective local governments.

The Lahore commissioner was appointed administrator of the Metropolitan Corporation of Lahore. The commissioners of other divisions in the province would be administrators of all municipal corporations at divisional headquarters.

Deputy commissioners have been appointed as the administrators of respective district councils, while additional deputy commissioners (revenue) of the respective districts would act as administrators of municipal corporations of Sialkot and Gujrat. The ADC of Murree has been appointed as administrator of the Murree Municipal Corporation.

The assistant commissioners of the respective tehsils have been given the office of administrators of municipal committees other than those housed at the district headquarters. The Local Government and Community Development department’s assistant directors of respective tehsils will work as heads of all union councils.

The newly-appointed administrators will perform all the duties and exercise all the powers of the respective mayor and deputy mayor or, as the case may be, the chairman or vice-chairman and the house till constitution and assumption of office by the elected local governments.

The PTI government had severally amended the law in dozens of cabinet standing committees on legislative business to mould the law and even continued facing harsh responses from the Election Commission of Pakistan. Until November last year, the PTI’s Punjab government was hastily working to get it approved from its cabinet and table in the Punjab Assembly. However, the Punjab government could not table it in the Punjab Assembly.

The PTI government showed haste as the ECP had directed to hold local government (LG) elections within 120 days after Dec 31. Former prime minister Imran Khan also asked the Buzdar government with holding local government elections by March 2022. The then opposition PML-N was making hue and cry that the PTI government had not shared the draft law with other political parties.

The PTI government’s final PLGA-2021 manuscript proposed the creation of 11 metropolitan corporations — nine at divisional headquarters and one each in Sialkot and Gujrat. It also identified 15 municipal corporations and proposed a municipal corporation status for Murree. Each municipal corporation will have population less than 250,000 people.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2022