Daily Times

LAHORE: Provincial Minister For Law & Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat said on Friday that the next Punjab budget would be presented in the new building of Punjab Assembly as speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has given special directives to the officials concerned to complete the project on urgent basis.

Talking to a group of journalists, he said that huge funds have been allocated in the budget for the new building of the Punjab Assembly as it is need of the hour keeping in view the total strength of Punjab Assembly that is the largest house in the country having 371 members and sitting arrangement is a grave issue for MPAs.

“The project of the new Punjab Assembly building was initiated when Pervaiz Elahi was chief minister some 12 years ago but previous governments did not take any interest to complete the project. Now, Elahi has once again taken keen interest in completing the project when he became speaker this time,” Raja Basharat, who has served as minister in Elahi’s cabinet from 2003-2007 said.

Talking about the new local government system being introduced in the province, he said that both the law and LG departments are working rigorously in finalising the draft for LG system and it would soon be introduced in the assembly for legislation. Sharing some features of the new law, he said that union councils in rural areas would be called as village councils while UCs in urban areas would be called neighbourhood councils and elections for these councils would be held on non-party basis.

There would be six elected members in each council. The elections for mayors and deputy mayors in the cities would be held on party basis, he added.

“There would be no overlapping in the roles of provincial government, district council or neighbourhood/village council as their jurisdiction and functions would be defined clearly in the new law,” Basharat said, who has also worked as minister for LGs in the past. According to Basharat, who has a vast experience of LG as he also remained Rawalpindi District Council chairman from 1979-1987, there has been an issue of overlapping in the LG system earlier because one single road used to be constructed separately by the union council, district council and the provincial government in the past at the same time and this problem would be addressed in the new LG system. He further added that all the provincial departments are working vigorously to implement the 100-days roadmap given by Prime Minister Imran Khan as all the departments will brief him after the expiry of this time period.

According to law, below the belt comments shouldn’t be used both from the treasury and opposition benches in order to run the affairs smoothly. He said that some MPAs from the opposition benches tried to attack the speaker as well as the staff of the assembly secretariat that day in the house during the budget speech and that conduct is highly condemnable.

“They damaged the official property worth Rs 0.9 million that day in the unfortunate incident and that amount should be recovered from their salaries,” the law minister concluded.

Published in Daily Times, October 20^th 2018.