LAHORE, Feb 8: The federal cabinet, which is meeting in Islamabad on Thursday, is expected to approve appointment of administrators for the local governments for supervising the forthcoming LB.

The idea is being opposed by a strong lobby in the country, including National Reconstruction Bureau Chairman Daniyal Aziz, which thinks that the appointment of administrators will destroy the local government system, which is aimed at devolution of power. It believes that the administrators will influence the outcome of the result.

On the contrary, almost all provincial governments and their administrations believe that the administrators will ensure impartially in the elections.

At present, the local government law has no provision for the appointment of administrators. And if the cabinet decides to appoint them, the law would have to be amended through a presidential ordinance.

According to official sources here on Tuesday, the cabinet might decide in favour of the administrators, who would be appointed in the district governments and tehsil councils.

As per the decision taken by an inter-provincial meeting and attended by the president and the prime minister, the administrators were to be appointed two months prior to the announcement of the election schedule for every district and tehsil council, they said.

If agreed, DCOs would be appointed as administrators of the district governments and TMOs or DOs (Revenue) as administrators of the tehsil councils, the sources said, adding that there would be no administrator in the union councils whose number is also likely to be reduced from 21 to 13.

They said the decision to appoint the administrators was taken unanimously but agreed that now certain quarters, including the NRB chairman, were opposing it.

The officials said the meeting, which was presided over by the president sometimes ago, had also decided to do away with external recall of the nazims by the provincial assembly, to introduce a mechanism to take disciplinary action against the nazims or remove them in case of misconduct by them, to eliminate joint ticket election for the nazims and naib nazims and to allow the nazims to preside over the House instead of the naib nazims.

The past four-year performance of the local governments demanded improvement in the system, the sources said.