Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori on Tuesday chaired a meeting attended by leaders of both the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) to consider changes being made to the provincial local government law.
A statement issued by the Governor House said that the meeting had made progress on the issue of empowering the municipal agencies of the province in accordance with the Article 140-A of the Constitution and directions of the Supreme Court to this effect.
Participants of the meeting reiterated their resolve to amend the provincial local government law for empowering the municipal agencies as per the directives of the apex judiciary. The governor said on the occasion that the provincial local government law should reflect the aspirations of the people of the province.
He said that both the PPP and MQM-P represented the mandate of the people of Sindh and both the political parties should continue to hold consultations with each other to amend the local government law as per the aspirations of the people.
The meeting was attended by former Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar, former federal law minister Barrister Farogh Naseem and Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Sadiq Iftikhar from the MQM-P’s side, and Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, Sindh Labour Minister Saeed Ghani and Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah from the PPP’s side.
SAPM Iftikhar, who is a member of the MQM-P’s Central Coordination Committee, told The News that although no breakthrough was achieved in Thursday’s meeting, but his party expected that the two parties would reach an agreement on amendments to the local government law in two or three days.
He added that the meeting was held in an amicable environment and the MQM-P representatives discussed the implementation of the Constitution of Pakistan’s Article 140-A that mentions the devolution of political, administrative and financial authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.
Iftikhar said the PPP representatives in the meeting agreed on implementing the Supreme Court verdict in this regard in letter and spirit. “We hope that within the next two or three days, the provincial government would implement Article 140-A,” the MQM-P leader said, adding that the party was not in favour of approaching the apex court again for the implementation of court orders as it wanted to resolve the issue with reconciliation and talks.
Iftikhar said that Karachi needed an empowered mayor. In the current system and especially after the Sindh Local Government Act 2013, he added, the mayor had no power and a number of organisations that were earlier functioning under the administrative control of the city administration had come under the jurisdiction the provincial government.
Due to the administrative mess caused by some municipal departments reporting to the mayor and the others to the Sindh government, and the mayor even could not initiate development projects on his own, he remarked.
About the role of the governor, Iftikhar said Tessori played the role of an arbitrator in the talk. "Kamran Tessori wants to resolve the matter with mutual understanding. He facilitated the talks between the MQM-P and the PPP.”
The MQM-P leader explained that his party had joined the current coalition government in the Centre on condition that the PPP would implement the Article 140-A. He added that no progress had been made on that agreement since then, and the MQM-P had lost the hope, but after the meeting on Thursday, the party expected that the people of Karachi would hear good news soon.