KP Assembly passes LG (third amendment) Bill 2015

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed the Local Government (Third Amendment) Bill, 2015 on Monday while the Ehtesab Commission (2nd Amendment) Bill 2015 was also tabled in the House.
Three more bills, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Establishment of Information Technology Board (Amendment) Bill, 2015, Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and Local Government (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2015 were also tabled by Senior Ministers Shahram Khan Tarakai and Inayatullah Khan in the House. The session at this point was chaired by Qaumi Watan Party (QWP)’s Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli in her capacity as head of the panel of chairpersons in absence of Speaker Asad Qaiser.
When Speaker Asad Qaiser arrived in the House after a short break, he put the Local Government (Third Amendment) Bill to vote and it was passed unanimously though Sardar Aurangzeb Nalota of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Nighat Orakzai of the Pakistan People’s Party raised objection, saying they were not against the amendments but wanted it to be debated. However, the Speaker said the bill was tabled much earlier but no member brought any amendment to it.
Explaining, Minister for Local Government Inayatullah said the amendments were about disqualification of a councillor on grounds of defection. As per the new law, he said no member could cast vote against the party line in the election of nazim or naib nazim, vote of confidence and no-confidence as well as approval of annual budget.
Council means town, tehsil or district council as the case may be. The party head will forward the disqualification/defection case to the presiding officer of the concerned council and the chief election commissioner and a copy to the member concerned.
The insertion of new section 115A to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Act No XXVIII 2015 is regarding outsourcing of functions. It reads that “the government may, by notification, exclude any of the function assigned to the city

district government, district, tehsil or town municipal administration, as the case may be, and outsource these functions to any authority, firm or company on such terms and conditions as it may be determined in accordance with the existing laws or rule in force in the province.”
The minister argued that basically the legislation is aimed at legalising the assigning of the cleanliness and sanitation task in the provincial metropolis to the Water
and Sanitation Services Peshawar (WSSP).
Chief Minister Pervez Khattak also assured that the
government did not want legislation in a hurry and to bulldoze a bill but it always tried to take all members into confidence and provide them the opportunity of expressing their views.
The amendment to the Ehtesab Commission Bill is aimed at removing shortcomings in the Act 2014. The main points in the amendments include turning bailable offences into non-bailable and also ensuring that no court shall have the jurisdiction to grant bail to any accused of the offence under this Act.
The accused convicted in the offence under this Act shall not be entitled to any remission in his/her sentence, under no circumstance shall the court grant adjournment of more than seven days, and the amendment once passed shall be deemed to have taken effect from January 1, 2014.