‘LGs low on agenda of political parties’

LAHORE : Local governments are not an important agenda of the political parties in the general elections 2018.

This was said by the representatives of political parties, including, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, Jamaat-e- Islami, Mutahidda Majlis- e-Amal, Pak Sar Zameen, Awami Workers Party, Jamhoori Watan Party, Awami Party Pakistan. According to them, local governments (LGs) are not included in their manifesto. They said this during a consultation with the members of political parties held at a local hotel.

The event was held to assess the extent to which political parties' manifestos incorporated local government (LG), and how this scope can be increased. The consultation generated a comprehensive debate on the political parties’ manifestos.

Nausheen Hamid of PTI, Amir Barrister of PPP, Azhar Iqbal of JI, Naseem Kanwal of PML-Q, Shazia Khan of AWP, Mubeen Qazi of Pak Sar Zameen Party, a number of civil society members, LG experts, representatives of government and media joined the event.

All the participants highlighted the importance of local governments and said that it was important to strengthen the democracy. LGs provide an opportunity to ordinary citizens to become responsible for the financial and administrative affairs of their areas, they said.

Zahid Islam, an LG expert, said the party manifestos were seen as an important instrument for measuring the priorities of political parties. In the history of Pakistan, this is the first time that 165,000 LG elected representatives are still functional and in placed in the local government system before general elections 2018.

Majority of them are affiliated with the political parties. He said "We hope that in future , all political parties will include the agenda of local governments in their manifestos, and the women, youth, labour/ peasant, and minority representation will be increased at all levels."

Dr Nausheen Hamid said the schedule for local government elections would be given within 100 days after coming in power. The participants emphasised that LG budget should not lapse at the end of the financial year, but it should be tied to project completion.