KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Monday agreed to speed up their mutual efforts for reforms in the local government system as agreed under the “charter of rights” signed between the two sides.

They have decided to meet daily to discuss proposals, suggest measures and identify the areas of consensus on the issue, picking up the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) and Karachi Development Authority (KDA) as a test case to find ways of devolution in the two key institutions.

The fresh resolve came at a meeting between the leaders of the two parties at the Chief Minister House.

The PPP side was led by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and comprising ministers Nasir Shah, Saeed Ghani, Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab. The MQM delegation was led by Kunwar Naveed Jameel and comprising Khawaja Izharul Hasan, Faisal Subzwari and Javed Hanif.

“In today’s meeting, a technical format was finalised for future engagements,” Khawaja Izhar of the MQM-P told Dawn. “Previous meetings consumed so much time, but we couldn’t reach any effective conclusion. So today we decided to meet daily and finalise at once the issues which are agreed or can be discussed and sort out those which cannot be agreed upon. So these things are done and to move forward, we decided to take an institution or two just for sampling the devolution process.”

In reply to a question, he said the meeting picked up the SBCA and KDA for that testing purpose while further deliberations on those proposals would be held in the next rounds of meetings.

Barrister Wahab, who is also the spokesperson for the Sindh government, also agreed with the thoughts shared by Mr Izhar that the whole efforts were being made to come up with political solutions of all problems mainly in the local government system.

PTI decries move

Their meeting was not largely welcomed by other opposition parties in Sindh.

In a statement, city president of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Bilal Ghaffar described the growing PPP-MQM coordination as “a criminal act” and a violation of the Constitution, which had kept other political stakeholders of the province out of the process.

“How the two parties can sit together and decide the fate of the province or its local government system without any consensus among parties who also have strong representation in the Sindh Assembly,” he said.

“This is not acceptable. We are requesting for a Sindh Assembly session as they are just fixing issues on their own. This is a joke with the parliamentary and democratic system,” he said.

Published in Dawn,June 7th, 2022