Protest against LG law: Ghani says assembly, not roads, right forum for achieving objective

KARACHI: Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani said on Monday that agitation on roads of Karachi is not the right way to amend the provincial local government law, as instead floor of the assembly should be used for advancing the arguments to do the same.

The Sindh Information and Labour Minister stated this while speaking at a press conference as he responded to the query of a media person regarding the protest-in of Jamaat-e-Islami continuing outside the Sindh Assembly building for the past three days. The Information Minister mentioned that the option was valid to further amend the provincial local government law but the Sindh Assembly was the right forum to achieve this cause.

He recalled that the opposition lawmakers in the Sindh Assembly had been twice given the opportunity, in the recent past, to present their amendments to the local government law but on both the occasions, the Opposition MPAs had opted to stage the walkout and raise the issue outside the house.

He was of the view that the main Opposition political parties in Sindh, Muttahida Quami Movement, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and Grand Democratic Alliance, knew very well that they had to face crushing defeat if the local government elections were held in the province in next four months. He said that these Opposition parties had been using different undue delaying tactics to avoid such a humiliation in the aftermath of the forthcoming municipal polls.

He reiterated the stance of the Sindh government that they were ready to hold the local government elections in the province as the same would be held soon after the Election Commission of Pakistan completed the exercise of fresh delimitation of the constituencies.

He said the Pakistan People’s Party was of the view that the forthcoming municipal polls in Sindh would go in its favour. Saeed Ghani said the ruling PTI had been completely wiped out in Sindh as it was sheer non-sense to make a claim that the Tehreek-e-Insaf would form the next provincial government. He said the MQM particularly wanted that the local government polls were not held in Sindh, as the party knew that it would meet the same fate as that of the PTI in the province.

He mentioned the recent statement of a federal minister that the newly passed Sindh Local Government (Amendment) bill had endangered the federation of Pakistan while stating that the minister in question belonged to such a ruling party, which soon after coming into power had abolished the local government set-up in Punjab.

He recalled that the Supreme Court had later ordered to revive the local governments in Punjab, which the ruling party had again abolished just after one month. He said the incompetent rulers in the country even didn’t know that it was the federal government and not the province, which conducted the population census as the provincial administration in Sindh had merely rendered assistance to complete the census exercise.

He recalled that the Sindh government’s request to share the enumeration data of census with the deputy commissioners in districts of the province to resolve any objection had not been accepted by the centre. He recalled that the centre had wrongly blamed that the Sindh government had not helped out the masses during the coronavirus emergency as he mentioned that Sindh had become the first province to impose lockdown against spread of the lethal infectious disease.

He further recalled that the federal government had not accepted the suggestion of Sindh to use the data of Benazir Income Support Programme to dispense the aid package during the lockdown as instead needy people were made to stand in long queues as the unsafe method so adopted furthered the alarming spread of coronavirus in the country.