Punjab Local Government Bill would be ratified in the next few days, according to Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, paving the way for LG elections in the provinces.
In a press conference following the Pakistan Tehreek-e-core Insaf’s committee meeting, he stated that the LG elections in Punjab would be held using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), as the relevant law had already been revised by the Punjab government.
The government’s allies were also brought on board after cordial discussions on the new format of the province’s next LG election. On December 19, he stated, local government elections were held in 17 districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
A total of 37,752 candidates are running for village chairmen and tehsil mayors, while 689 people are running for village chairmen and tehsil mayors. There were 19,282 candidates running for neighborhood councils.
He praised the Election Commission of Pakistan’s move to form technical committees on EVM issues, saying the ECP is now on the right track to hold the next election using EVMs. In this aspect, the government was willing to support the ECP.
Putting aside concerns that the next elections will be expensive, he stated that the election process will be less expensive than in the past due to the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
As Punjab Local Government Bill expected to approved in few days, he stated Dr. Sania, the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation and Social Welfare, informed the Core Committee on a number of major social welfare programs.
She updated the gathering on the Ehsaas Scheme and the Rs 350 billion Sehat Insaf Card program, which will cover medical expenses for one million people across Punjab.
He said the government was pushing the Sindh government to join the federal government for initiating such humanitarian schemes in Sindh but they were reluctant owing to the absence of prospects of gaining personal profits from the program.
He claimed that the government of Balochistan has consented to participate in and contribute to the social programs, but that Sindh has yet to agree.
The Sindh government played an anti-people position by refusing to participate in federal government social welfare programs.
The Sindh government played an anti-people position by refusing to participate in federal government social welfare programs.
He stated that the subject of inflation was discussed during the conference and that the Sensitive Price Index had decreased by 0.67 percent, which was good. The government was doing everything it could to keep the effects of global inflation to a minimum. People would receive assistance in the following days.
In response to a query, he stated that inflation was the product of previous governments’ disastrous actions, and that people like former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi were now crying crocodile tears over the price increase.
He invited Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to meet with the Bureau of Statistics to learn more about their inflation reporting system.
The opposition was a group of ignorant people who were uninformed about current events. Inflation records from Karachi contributed to a 40 percent surge in the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) index.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s former PML-N government left a Rs157 billion debt. The consequences of their anti-people policies were still being felt in Pakistan. Criticizing the opposition, he stated that the opposition was not willing to attend parliamentary party sessions (for Election Reforms). The opposition’s reservations about the use of electronic voting machines in elections were evident.
