‘The government plans to upgrade the system through the LG law’

KARACHI: While the opposition parties in Sindh are on the warpath where the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Act (SLGA), 2021 is concerned, heaping scorn on the Pakistan Peoples Party for passing a ‘black law’, senior PPP leader Taj Haider feels the law is designed to “serve” the people.

Haider, who is also the party’s core committee member, told Bol News that “We are improving governance and bringing the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Act (SLGA), 2021 to unburden the local bodies system and serve people at a lower level.”

He also said that the court of law had given the date to pass the LG law and in the last meeting regarding the law, he looked into this matter on the directive of PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. “I made some points on the guiding pages after consulting other colleagues that we will have an inclusive approach to go with all people. It is aimed to streamline work on the basis of better performance and financial resources.

“After a long discussion, it was decided to give education and health institutions to the provincial government, enhance union committees (UCs) and allocate some resources to run the local bodies system efficiently in terms of collections of property tax, some other taxes and support of the provincial government at the level of the local government.”

The local governments could work to collect property taxes in a better way as compared with the provincial government, he added. “The government plans to upgrade the system through this law. In the Musharraf era, the local bodies system had many flaws including delimitation of localities and funds released by Islamabad to run the local government and others.”

‘Better governance’

After the passage of this amended SLGA, Karachi has been divided into 26 towns for better governance, he explained. There has been pressure exerted by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the parties that are part of the federal government, but PPP is fully capable of bearing this pressure, he claimed.

He highlighted that the government gave him the responsibility to engage JI in parleys in order to tackle the situation following the newly-passed LG law, but because of many issues in the Senate, he could not manage time to look into this.

Therefore, he urged Sindh Minister for Local Government Syed Nasir Hussain Shah to hold serious talks with the JI forthwith as unrest and distrust is rising. Though Shah visited the JI protest camp, the deadlock persists. Yet parleys are continuing.

“The JI has a role in politics. If we do not intend to promote integration and we do not have an inclusive approach, we could ignore the JI but they have a point of view. However, all other opposition parties are really the federal government’s parties which might not peruse the law,” he said.

He pointed out the fact that the JI and the other opposition parties have differences and did not participate in each other’s demonstrations.

Poor infrastructure

Speaking about poor infrastructure of Karachi and other districts of the province, he commented that main thoroughfares are better but there were run-down roads in the interior of localities. Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab has been working on these issues, he added.

Throwing light on some flexibility over amendment or improvement of the new LG law, he remarked that every law is always ready for improvement as per needs but the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) were not talking about amendments to the law.

“They prefer agitation. If they had some amendments or proposals, they should have submitted them on the floor of the Sindh Assembly. The government is showing its flexibility and PPP has a presence in Karachi now.”

If the parties have some good amendments, they should share them and PPP is ready to debate on them in the interest of locals, he stated. Commenting on the poor law and order situation in Karachi, he admitted that when people were unemployed and hungry, and when food inflation skyrocketed, they would definitely resort to crime.