Draft of Local Bodies Bill: Punjab governor for removing anomalies

Session of Punjab Assembly will be convened very soon to rectify the anomalies in the draft of Local Bodies (LB) Bill so that these institutions could start working at grass root level for the mitigation of people's problems, said Governor Punjab Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar.

Addressing a function of Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) here today, he said that the root cause of people's problems was non-functional LB institutions. He said that during the tenure of previous government the elected councilors were not allowed to take oath for one year and even after the oath taking ceremony, they remained deprived of funds. He told that in new LB system the basic unit will be a village council, which will have 30 percent funds. He said that it is not fair to claim that abrogation of LB law had created problems for the people. He said that under new system the people will get all services at the village council level.

Responding to a question, he said that no one can yet say that these institutions were wound up illegally. "It is only the courts who could decide that this decision was legal or illegal", he added. He further clarified that according to new draft of LB, these institutions would be non-political so that they could serve the masses without any political consideration.

Commenting on the problems confronted by the Muslim Ummah, he said that we failed to follow the footprints of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). He said that terrorism had plagued Pakistan. However, now internal stability has been restored and world institutions are tagging Pakistan as No.1 tourists' destination of the world.

Regarding Kashmir, he said that entire India has become Kashmir, where protestation has crippled the Indian government in many states. He claimed that Pakistan will become a prosperous country if we succeeded to revive our economy. He also quoted his previous visit to FCCI and said that he is proud of always speaking truth despite of any consequences.

Regarding current account deficit, he said that it was 19-20 billion dollars but government has successfully controlled it but we could not gain political advantage of this big achievement. He said that most of the people are ignorant of the impacts of the current account deficit which have grave consequences on our economy. He told that during last 4 months our current account deficit has decreased from 6 to 1 billion dollars.