JI asks govt to withdraw changes to LG act

PESHAWAR: The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has rejected the changes to Local Government Act as a bid of the provincial government to maintain its hegemony over the districts and it should be withdrawn at the earliest.

Addressing a news conference here on Wednesday, provincial chief of the party, Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, said that the JI had already challenged the act in Peshawar High Court as through it the government has taken back the powers from the districts.

Flanked by former provincial senior minister for local government and vice-president of the party Inayatullah Khan, general secretary Abdul Wasi and others, the JI leader said that the dictatorial style of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was getting worse with each passing day and it has taken a big U-turn on all the promises it had made with the people.

Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said that through the act, the government has shifted all the powers to the chief minister.

He said that the local government act was a collection of contradictions.

The new act was ultra vires to the 1973 Constitution, which stresses that political, administrative and financial powers should be devolved to the districts, he added. But under the new act, 16 out of the 24 devolved departments would be shifted again to the province, which is against the spirit of the constitution.

The JI leader blasted the PTI government and said that the government has badly failed on all fronts.

He also criticised the Bus Rapid Transit project, which, he said, has made life a living hell for the people of the provincial capital.