KARACHI: Sindh Education Minister Sardar Ali Shah said Monday the provincial government would allow schools that have completely vaccinated their staff against coronavirus to operate from August 30.
The government, a day earlier in a late-night notification, had announced that all public and private schools across the province would remain closed till further orders. Earlier, the provincial government had announced that schools in Sindh would remain closed till August 30.
“We want the rate of vaccination to increase in the education sector,” the education minister said while Murtaza Wahab, Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sindh, chief secretary government of Sindh and secretary Local Government. The ECP secretary briefed the Election Commission that the term of local government bodies in Sindh had expired on August 30, 2020. According to the constitution and law, the ECP is bound to hold elections within 120 days. He added the ECP has completed all the preparations in which the notification of zoning officers and zoning authorities has been issued on June 01, 2021.
“Therefore, the provincial government should provide the ECP with the number of local councils, maps and other necessary data so that the ECP can immediately initiate delimitation to ensure that the next local body elections are held in the province,” he said.
To this, the Chief Secretary Sindh took the position that the government of Sindh wanted to make changes in the local body laws so that the nature, number and population of various local government bodies including local councils, municipal corporations, municipal committees, town committees etc. can be determined, which requires six months.
Murtaza Wahab briefed the ECP that the government of Sindh has reservations about the final census data, which was published on May 06, 2021, after the approval of the CCI. “Under Article 154 (7), we have approached the federal government. Until our appeal is decided, it is not possible to hold local body elections in the province. The ranks and number of members of the councils could not be provided to the Election Commission amid reservations,” he noted. In addition, he emphasised the Sindh High Court (SHC) in its Local Government Election Case, published in PLD63/2016, stated that the process of amendments in the laws should be completed 18 months before the local body election schedule and the demarcation work should be started one year before the election schedule.
The CEC remarked that the government of Sindh had earlier taken the position that the ECP could not delimit on the provisional population figures 2017, in view of which the ECP had temporarily halted the process of delimitation in the province. “Now that the final population figures have been published, you have taken the position that the Sindh government has reservations about the final population figures, which gives the impression that the provincial government is not serious about holding local body elections in Sindh. If the Parliament does not resolve this issue immediately, will local body elections not be held in the province?” he asked.
When the Election Commission asked the representatives of the provincial government for a time frame for holding the elections, they said that they were not in a position to give a time frame at present. The ECP, after hearing the views of the Sindh government representatives, decided to convene a separate meeting of the ECP to consider the issue and take appropriate decision on it.
