LAHORE, Aug 19: A special committee on Monday submitted to the Punjab Assembly the report on the Punjab Local Government Bill 2013 with a dissenting note by the opposition.

The opposition will submit its amendments to the proposed law to the house on Tuesday.

Opposition members Sardar Waqas Hasan Mokal, Sardar Shahabuddin Khan and Waseem Akhtar have submitted a note of dissent on the 35-page report of the special committee consisting of treasury and opposition members.

The treasury says it has finalised the report after incorporating amendments proposed by the opposition. The opposition’s dissenting note speaks otherwise.

The report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, has ignored opposition’s suggestions on direct election of chairmen, vice-chairmen and joint candidates of municipal committees.

The committee has proposed indirect election of municipal corporations’ mayors and deputy mayors as joint candidates but a municipal corporation having population of more than one million shall have two deputy mayors and thereafter there shall be one additional deputy mayor for each one million of additional population.

The committee suggests the Metropolitan Corporation (Lahore) mayor and nine deputy mayors, as joint candidates shall also be elected ‘indirectly’.

The opposition’s concern of horse-trading in the election of chairman and mayor is also not addressed. It says: “The local government, other than an authority, shall consist of such number of directly and indirectly elected members – mayor, deputy mayor or deputy mayors, chairman, vice-chairman as is mentioned in the first schedule. If there is more than one member in any category of seats in a local government, the election shall be held on the basis of proportional representation.”

If the chairman of a union council is elected as mayor or deputy mayor or as a chairman or vice-chairman of the district council, he shall cease to be the chairman of the union council and the seat of the chairman shall stand vacated.

The chairman of a union council shall be the executive head of the union council.

“If the office of the chairman or vice-chairman of an authority for any reasons falls vacant during the term in office, the (Punjab) government shall appoint a new chairman or the vice-chairman of the authority with in 30 days.

The committee also suggests that the age of the candidate for the local government should not be less than 25 years and he must not be a dual national.

It has also proposed constitution of the Punjab Local Government Board consisting of chairman and five members. The board shall be a body corporate having perpetual succession and a common seal with power to acquire, hold and transfer property, movable and immovable.

The treasury members of the committee did not take into account the opposition’s suggestion on the issue of delimitation and went ahead with its own proposed one.

It suggests the government shall in a prescribed manner delimit a municipal committee into wards for election of members of the municipal committee on general seats.

Sardar Hasan Mokal told Dawn that his note of dissent was primarily on local body elections on a non-party basis, financial powers to bureaucracy and authorising the chief executive of the province to take action against the mayor/chairman. Besides, the proposed formation of health and education authorities amounted to curbing local government’s powers, Mr Mokal said.