- Women representation in union councils to increase from one to two
- PA passes resolution against attack on Bibi Zainab (SA)’s shrine
Opposition in the Punjab Assembly (PA) strongly reacted against the hike in petroleum prices and staged a token walk out from the House on Thursday.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed opposition leader Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed on a point of order strongly condemned the recent increase in prices of petroleum products and electricity tariff from the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) government and said that such inflation was forcing the people to hold protest against the Sharifs. He also announced a token walkout from the House and left with other opposition members. However, after five minutes they returned to house on the request of the government.
The PA session on Thursday started one hour and seven minutes late to its scheduled time under the chair of PA Deputy Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani. As per routine, the session started with the holy verses of Quran and the Naat.
Soon after, the chair suspended the agenda and continued general debate on the Punjab Local Government (PLG) Bill in which as many as 20 legislators participated and registered their suggestions on the bill.
The members who participated in the debate include Ahmad Khan Bhachar, Main Naseer, Jameel Hasan Khan, Saif-ul-Malook Khokhar, Mian Rafique, Sheikh Allauddin, Waheed Gull, Mian Muhammad Aslam Islam, Chaudhry Lal Hussain, Shehzad Munshi, Shameela Aslam, Anees Qureshi, Abdur Rauf Mughal, Kiran Dar, Bao Akhtar, Yaqoob Nadeem Sethi, Malik Ahmad Khan, Malik Ahmad Saeed, Abdul Qadeer Alvi and Asghar Ali Manda.
Most of the members emphasised that the government should amend the bill and must increase the number of women’s seats for councilors as well as total seats of all urban and rural union councils.
On the issue of holding local government elections either on political party bases or non-political party bases, the opinion of members were mixed but mostly were in favour of party bases elections.
A minority member Shehzad Munshi addressing the House suggested the government that the post of deputy mayor in the local government system should be fixed for the minorities while Shaneela demanded to enhance women representation in the local governments.
The PMLN member Waheed Gull urged his government that all the projects of foreign companies like work of Turk Company of Metro Bus Service should be defined in the PLG Bill.
Mian Aslam Islam demanded the government that ‘Patwar Circles’ have become outdated so their delimitations should be revived in Punjab.
Moreover, Asghar Manda said that LG elections should be held on old delimitations and chairman and deputy chairman should be elected through direct polling.
Mian Naseer said that the role of chief executive officer and other officials was not clear in the LG System so it should be defined clearly in the bill. He also suggested that district government should be free to spend their tax collections from the area on their own area.
Later, giving a concluding speech to the House, Local Government and Law Minister Rana Sanaullah thanked the PA members for their suggestions on the bill and said that they would fully implement the Supreme Court orders to hold LG elections by September 15 this year.
He said that meetings of the Punjab Assembly’s special committee for reviewing the bill would continue for next four to five days and it would represent its report on the bill in the next session which might be called soon after Eid on August 12. He said in the next session they would pass the bill by August 15.
Sanaullah also ensured the house that elected members of the local government would be included in the district education and health authorities while the seats of women were being enhanced in the union councils from one to two after amending the bill. He also said that it was also suggested that the names of union councils in rural areas and cities should be changed with the village councils and city councils respectively.
During the session, a resolution was also presented by the different political parties condemning the attacks on the holy places of Muslims especially the shrine of Hazrat Bibi Zainab (SA) and the mosque adjacent to the shrine of Hazrat Khalid Bin Waleed during the recent civil war in Syria.
The resolution further demanded that the Syrian government should give protection to the holy places ensuring their security in future.
The PA members unanimously passed the resolution suggesting the federal government that it should make a demand to Syrian government to provide protection to all holy places.