LAHORE: The Punjab government has so far failed to come up with the Punjab Local Government Act (PLGA) 2024 draft, to be presented before the provincial cabinet for its nod to table it in the provincial assembly for legislation.

While the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued several warnings and summoned the local government department secretary and the chief secretary over the delay in the presentation of the draft law.

It seems the finalisation of the draft law would be further delayed as the Punjab government has made the focal person working on it an OSD.

Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) Additional Secretary Arshad Baig, who wasfocal person on preparation of the PLGA 2024 draft, was transferred on Friday and was directed him to report to the S&GAD. He has been replaced with the Higher Education Additional Secretary Usman Tahir.

The incumbent PML-N government has so far missed all deadlines and could not finalise the PLGA 2024 draft despite the ECP warnings.

Allegedly, in order to hoodwink the ECP, the LG&CD had sent the draft law to the Punjab law and parliamentary affairs department for vetting, and since then there is no headway in this regard.

Sources say the draft law was supposed to be presented before the Punjab cabinet for approval and sending it to the Punjab Assembly for legislation. However, sources claimed that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz did not approve the draft law for different reasons and returned it for revision, in consultation with all stakeholders.

The chief minister had, during the last week of April this year, constituted a 20-member committee, convened by LG&CD minister Zeeshan Rafique and school education minister Rana Sikandar Hayat, and directed it to review the proposed amendments to the existing law and present a draft of the new local government Act to her within 15 days.

While, the LG&CD secretary was authorised to act as secretary to the committee, it had 14 MPAs as members – Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain Chhachhar, Salman Naeem, Muhammad Ahmad Khan Leghari, Ghazali Saleem Butt, Ziaullah Shah, Amjad Ali Javed, Sardar Muhammad Asim Sher Maken, Ahmed Iqbal, Ghazanfar Abbas Cheena, Raees Nabeel, Raja Muhammad Aslam Khan, Ghulam Murtaza, Kanwal Pervaiz Chaudhry and Salma Butt. The Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department Secretary Asif Bilal Lodhi and two lawyers – Moazzam Ali Shah and Usama Khawar Ghumman – were also nominated as the committee members.

The local government elections are due in the province for the past several years.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024