Bureaucracy rendered toothless
In its first act of true political muscle-flexing, the PML-N has heartily embraced the local government ordinance, which will all but defang the bureaucracy and lessen its role in administration. Thanks to the N’s latest exploit, the bureaucracy is in a headlock and the once potent office of the DCO is now only a sad remnant of its former mighty self. The ‘revolutionary’ legislation was tabled for discussion in the Punjab Assembly by the PML-N heavyweight Rana Sanaullah, who could barely contain his exuberance, knowing that his parties’ clever initiative would rope in Punjab for his party and decimate the bureaucracy, all in one stroke. The opposition, however, as expected, had none of it and resorted to delaying tactics, pleading to the speaker, Rana Iqbal to adjourn the session till Thursday. For better or for worse the proposed legislation got a thumbs-up by a massive majority upsetting the bill’s opponents a wee bit too much.
Striking out against his own camp, the treasury member Tahir Sindhu tabled a substantial amount of 13 amendments, which were all shot down. Meanwhile, the opposition, trying the emotional appeal, compared the proposed LG system with the dreaded 58(2)-B. The PML-N’s legislators were however unimpressed and after bulldozing the bill through the assembly, passed it on to the governor who will now sign it into law. Out on the streets though, very few people seemed to comprehend the gist of this newly adopted governmental system. In a nutshell and from the opposition’s point of view, this new arrangement is as totalitarian as it gets, placing everything from health and education to the local government’s budget and development under the iron fist of the regime.
The first building block in this governmental mechanism is the UC or Union Council. Every town, city and village will have one such entity, all of which will be uniform when it comes to population. The names and terms might vary from towns to villages but the overall function of the bodies will be quite similar. Like a legislature, this administrative body will have public representatives elected to it. The officials will include women, minorities and youth representatives elected on reserved seats, which will hopefully balance out the political opinions and interests. Another interesting feature of the system is that public administrators will be able to hand over a number of its services to private or public companies, as the situation might demand. The decrease in the power of public officers is one of the salient features of the upcoming arrangement. Health and education authorities will replace the functions previously performed by the offices of the EDOs and DCOs in addition to the clout to transfer officials up to grade 18. The DCOs are sadly the main victims of the legislation as their judicial powers have also been trimmed as the PML-N tightens further its grip on the province.
