The tenure of local bodies of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province is going to expire on August 28, 2019 as directives have already been issued to the district, town and tehsil heads of the local government in this regards. KP Local Government Department has issued instructions to the Nazim and Naib-Nazim of all districts, towns and tehsils, as well as representatives of village councils, neighbourhood councils before the expiry of local bodies' tenure on the next Wednesday.

The officials were directed to hand over all government vehicles and records to the deputy commissioners (DCs) of their areas, whereas, DCs were ordered to send detailed report of the recovered assets and records to the LG department. Earlier in April, Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Babar Yaqoob, had chaired a high-level meeting in Peshawar to discuss preparations of the new local bodies' election in KP.

The provincial secretaries of local government and law and ECP senior officials of ECP had attended the important meeting. It is pertinent to mention here that the commission is bound to hold elections with 120 days after the expiry of LB tenure under the Article 140 (A) and Section (4) 219 of Election Act 2017. The ECP secretary sought appropriate time from the KP government for delimitation, training and preparations of the electoral lists for the upcoming elections.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019