KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday once again asked the Sindh government to reverse the appointment of three government officers as administrators of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC), and Karachi’s East and Korangi district municipal corporations.

The ECP through a letter asked the local government department to cancel the transfer of the administrators, including Javedur Rehman Kalwar of DMC-Korangi, Rehmatullah Shaikh of DMC-East and Muhammad Farooq of the HMC.

On Dec 19, the provincial government appointed Muhammad Farooque, Syed Shakeel Ahmed and Muhammad Sharif as the administrators of the HMC and DMC-Korangi and that of DMC-East in line with an agreement between the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P).

Appointment of the new administrators triggered a strong protest by the political parties, including Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Jamat-i-Islami (JI), Sindh United Party and civil rights campaigners, who lodged complaints with the ECP that the three appointed officers were stated to be party loyalists.

Prior to their appointment, Mr Farooque and Mr Ahmed had been working as administrator of the Worker Model School, SITE Hyderabad, and Korangi, respectively. Mr Sharif had earlier been working as the director of charged parking at the DMC Central.

On Monday, the ECP again wrote to the local government secretary to withdraw or keep in abeyance the transfers of the three administrators, also asking him to avoid issuing further transfer and posting notification till culmination of the phase two of the local government elections.

The ECP officials said the directions to the local government secretary for not transferring the three administrators were issued for the second time after complaints were lodged by PTI Sindh president Syed Ali Haider Zaidi, JI naib emir Sindh Raja Arif Sultan Minhas and Advocate Dr Shahab Imam.

On Dec 21, the office of the provincial election commissioner in a letter addressed to the local government secretary said the ECP through a notification issued on June 10 had imposed a ban on the transfer/ posting during the conduct of local government elections.

The letter reminded the government of an earlier ECP notification that states: “For divisions in respect of which election schedule of local government elections has been issued, no transfer / posting of the government officers and officials, including those of autonomous bodies/ authorities, shall be made without prior approval of the commission till the publication of election results”.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2022