Karachi: The term of elected local government representative in the Sindh province - including Karachi’s Mayor - is set to expire in 16 days after the completion of their four-year constitutional term.
Secretary of Sindh Government’s Local Government Department Roshan Ali Shaikh informed Gulf News on Thursday that administrators would be appointed by the provincial government in place of the elected local government representatives after expiry of their term. He said that these administrators would assume responsibilities as executive heads of the local government agencies across the province from 30th August, 2020.
He said that as per the decision of the provincial government, these administrators would be government officers of good repute belonging to the Local Government service and Pakistan Administrative Service of the country’s civil service.
He said that the Sindh government as per the Sindh Local Government Act-2013 was under obligation to conduct the next local government elections in the province in 120 days after expiry of the term of the local government representatives.
He said that the Sindh government had not embarked upon the process of doing fresh delimitation of the constituencies of local government agencies as the same had to be done on the basis of results of a fresh population census. Whereas, he said, the results of the last census conducted in the country had not been formally notified by the government.
He said that in this regard the Sindh government had formally informed the Election Commission of Pakistan that it would conduct the next local government elections on the basis of the existing delimitation of the constituencies.
The Sindh Local Government secretary said that as such there is no legal or administrative issue in the passage towards the next local government elections as the polls in Sindh would be conducted in time.
He said that a three-member committee had been constituted by Sindh cabinet to amend the Sindh Local Government Act-2013 to devolve more powers to the elected local government representatives as per the spirit of the Constitution. The committee comprises of Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani, and Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Law Barrister Murtaza Wahab.
Mr. Shaikh said that more powers would be devolved to the elected local government representatives keeping in view local governance systems being practiced around the world. He said that in this regard more administrative and financial powers would be given to local government office-bearers.
Elected local government representatives in the province including Karachi’s Mayor often complain about lack of powers to run the municipal systems especially that of a big city. They said that Constitution of the country guaranteed more powers to run the municipal agencies but the same were not devolved to them by the Sindh government.
Sindh Governor Imran Ismail also recently said that such officials should be appointed as administrators of local government agencies who are politically impartial and possessed the ability to serve the masses.
There are around 1,950 elected local government representatives in Sindh whose term will expire on 29th August, 2020.
