Senate concerned over efforts to repeal 18th Amendment
ISLAMABAD: Reports suggesting efforts to repeal the 18th Amendment, consequently all the painstaking work on devolution has raised serious concerns with a Senate panel on Monday.
A local media house stated that the newly-formed Senate’s functional panel on devolution sought details from provinces about the status of transfer of departments since the adoption of the 18th Amendment.
A meeting of the functional committee was held under Senator Maula Bux Chandio to discuss all relevant issues.
Expressing concern over certain developments that occurred during the tenure of the previous PML-N government, Chandio warned that efforts were being made to revert the devolved subjects back to the center.
Furthermore, Senator Raza Rabbani also said that the previous committee’s report and its performance needed to be reviewed.
Chandio also stated that Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) should have been transferred to provinces but nothing had yet been done in this regard.
The secretary of the committee was directed to send letters, asking all provinces to detail their problems and which departments still had not been transferred.
He said that if provinces could smoothly run their affairs, running departments should not be a problem for them.
Almost eight years after the adoption of the 18th Amendment, the cabinet division recently sent a letter to federal ministries, asking them if they wanted functions of the devolved institutions back.
Earlier, as many as 17 ministries had been devolved to provinces after the passage of the 18th Amendment, but some key ministries were reestablished since 2011.
In 2012, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had formed a cabinet committee on restructuring, but it held just three meetings. The committee held its last meeting in 2015 that was chaired by the then finance minister Ishaq Dar.
In April this year the PM issued a notification for regularising more than 38,000 employees in provinces who had been facing uncertainty since 2010.
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