EDITORIAL: There is clearly more to the Irsa Amendment Ordinance 2024 than meets the eye. First, for some reason, the caretaker administration suddenly reached far beyond its mandate, that too in its dying days when it should’ve been completely occupied with the election, and overhauled the structure of the Authority by robbing provinces of their say and bypassing the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

And the mystery only deepened when then president Arif Alvi refused to sign it, citing the obvious fact that such important matters should only be debated and decided by elected representatives of the people, because nobody really knows whether the president rejected the ordinance or suggested a revisit.

Then who knew that the new PM, after a very controversial election, would leverage this controversial ordinance as one of his first acts after taking office and unilaterally bypass the existing structure to appoint a retired bureaucrat as the new Irsa chairman even before bringing the law to the floor of the house? A lot of onlookers and observers did know, however, that such a course of action would trigger an immediate and very strong response from PPP in Sindh. And that is exactly what happened, also marking the first major disagreement between the main partners of the fragile coalition government in the centre.

Surely, PM Shehbaz knew what he was doing, so the subsequent decision to withdraw his earlier decision came not from some delayed realisation about doing the wrong thing but quite clearly from the stiff pressure from PPP. Former water and power minister Naveed Qamar minced few words as he said this “was the first illegal act of the present government”, and “if we start encroaching upon the rights of the provinces then how do we function as a federation?”

So far, despite the confusion, two things are very clear. One, considering how the caretaker setup dug into this matter right at the end of its tenure even though it was none of its business to fiddle with such things, and how the new elected government went about taking it further without necessary debate and discussion, it seems there are forces that are bent upon altering the working structure of Irsa. And two, the provinces, especially Sindh, will not accept the controversial amendment ordinance which upsets the old way of choosing the chairman on an annual rotation basis.

Therefore, now that we have a democratic, duly elected government in place, the only way forward is to debate this matter in the house and proceed accordingly. The first thing that must be explained is the urgent need for standing the existing arrangement on its head. Why must the CCI be ignored and provinces “neutralised”? Water-sharing and transfer between provinces is a very crucial matter, after all, so why must they be deprived of a say in it? Why must the federal government handpick the chairman, especially one vested with extraordinary powers?

This is a democracy, after all, so there must be transparency and accountability. PM Shehbaz Sharif seems to have got off on the wrong foot in his second stint. He would want to be careful about creating too much friction too soon. It’s his job now to make sure that the federation functions normally, after all. And he’s not made a good start.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024