ISLAMABAD: Ahead of the upcoming local government elections, the federal government faced another setback as after the protest of teachers thousands of employees of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Tuesday also took to the streets against the Islamabad Local Government Ordinance 2021.

The employees staged a protest at Aabpara opposing the devolution of CDA’s departments to the local government under the ordinance.

Addressing the rally, CDA Employees Union General Secretary Chaudhry Yaseen said instead of taking the employees into confidence the government through an ordinance had decided to shift almost all departments of the civic agency to the local government.

He said the union will oppose the move and will utilise all available options against the division of the departments.

Protesters say future of 14,000 workers at stake and their placement under MCI will be resisted

Mr Yaseen, who is also secretary of Pakistan Workers Federation, said he was enjoying the support of workers of a large number of federations and if a need arose the CDA employees will go for a lockdown of the city and will also stage protests outside Parliament House.

He said the CDA was the developer of Islamabad but during the last tenure of the fund-less local government the city saw its roads dilapidated and streets and footpaths broken.

However, he added, when the federal government last year gave the administrative control of various departments of the local government back to the CDA the latter carried out development works and now the roads and streets have been carpeted and more development works were in progress.

He said the CDA had over 14,000 employees whose future was at stake and the union would not allow anyone to shift them to the local government.

Trader leaders Ajmal Baloch, Kashif Chaudhry; religious leader Syed Jahangir Shah, Javed Baloch from Wapda Hydro Electric Union, Ijaz Chaudhry from OGDCL, Azhar Awan from the teachers’ union and other unionists also spoke on the occasion.

They promised their full support to the CDA union against the ordinance, stating instead of issuing the ordinance the government should have debated the matter in parliament.

According to the local government ordinance, the over 40 departments of CDA, except the chairman secretariat and the planning and estate wings, along with thousands of employees are to be transferred to the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (MCI) within a year.

Teaching and non-teaching staff of all educational institutions in Islamabad have already staged protests against the local government ordinance under which their schools would also be placed under the administrative control of the MCI.

The first local government completed its five-year term in February this year and new elections were to be held within 120 days. The federal government recently promulgated the Islamabad Local Government Ordinance 2021 for holding local bodies’ elections.

The government is planning to hold the elections in March-April. A few days ago, the CDA union through advocate Kashif Malik also filed a case in the Islamabad High Court, challenging the ordinance.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2021