PPP-MQM committee on LB system planned

The committee will be headed by Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah.—APP photo

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to set up a joint PPP-MQM committee on the issue of the commissionerate system in Karachi, sources privy to the development told Dawn on Monday.
They said the committee, to be headed by Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, would have three members from the PPP and two from the MQM.
The members from the PPP will be Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro and Sindh Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani.
“The joint committee will find ways and means to reach a consensus on the local bodies system to be enforced in Karachi,” the sources said, adding the government had asked the MQM to give names of its two representatives to be part of the committee.
When contacted, an MQM leader requesting anonymity said his party had been asked to nominate its two leaders as members of the committee.
However, MQM`s media wing in charge Wasay Jamil said: “No one has so far contacted us for the formation of a joint committee.”
A PPP leader said the ruling party would try to convince the MQM on the recently-introduced commissionerate system and offer it that bureaucracy in the local government system could be consisted of officials to be nominated by the two parties.
The commissioner and deputy commissioners may possibly be appointed according to the wishes of the MQM, he said.
Talking to Dawn, MQM`s Rabita Committee chairman Raza Haroon said his party would welcome any decision by the government about amendments to the commissionerate system, police order and local bodies system in Sindh.