Sindh governor sends back LG amendment bill

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Tuesday returned to the provincial legislature the newly-passed Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill-2021 without assenting to it.

It is learnt that the Sindh governor has written in his objections that the amendments made to the provincial local government law are against Article 140-A of the Constitution. It is further learnt that the Sindh governor has returned the bill after putting 10 observations on the draft of the newly-passed amendment bill.

These observations are reportedly related to abolishing the district municipal corporations, revival of town municipal administrations in Karachi in place of the DMCs, secret balloting for electing mayors and chairmen as heads of municipal agencies. The observations are also reportedly related to disempowering the municipal agencies in the province to financially weaken them.

The meeting of the Sindh cabinet will be held on Thursday (tomorrow) to deliberate upon the governor’s objections to the newly-passed Sindh Local Government amendment bill. The Sindh governor has also summoned the session of Sindh Assembly on Friday at 2 pm.

Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, accompanied by Karachi’s Administrator Barrister Murtaza Wahab, met Sindh Governor Imran Ismail. A handout issued by the Sindh Governor House said that the meeting took into consideration the overall law and order situation of the province, improvement of mutual relations for the development of Sindh and uplifting the living standard of the people of the province.

The meeting also took into consideration the Sindh governor’s reservations regarding the draft of the ordinance recently sent to him by the Sindh government for regularising the unauthorised residential buildings in the province.