ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has submitted a resolution against against Pakistan Island Development Authority Ordinance in Senate on Tuesday.
According to details, the resolution is also signed by members of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) and Balochistan National Party Mengal (BNP-M). While Signatures of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) members were missing in the resolution.
PPP Senator Sassui Palijo submitted the resolution in Senate Secretariat saying, “We reject the ordinance on islands.”
On Monday, Sindh Government refused to hold talks with the federal government over the matter until the revocation of Pakistan Islands Development Authority Ordinance 2020.
Prime Minister Imran Khan in a meeting had directed Governor Sindh Imran Ismail to hold talks with the PPP-led Sindh government over the matter after reservations.
On August 30, President Arif Alvi had promulgated the ordinance for establishing the Pakistan Islands Development Authority for the “development and management of islands in internal and territorial waters of Pakistan.”
However, the Sindh government withdrew its July 6, 2020 letter in which the Land Utilization Department had consented to the federal government to take custody of both islands.
On October 6, the Sindh Cabinet had unanimously rejected Pakistan Island Development Authority Ordinance and demanded that the federal government withdraw it at once.
According to a statement from the Chief Minister House, the cabinet unanimously rejected the presidential ordinance under which Pakistan Islands Development Authority has been established.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah chaired a meeting of the cabinet at the CM House and provincial ministers, advisors, chief secretary Mumtaz Shah, and concerned secretaries attended the meeting.
After receiving a detailed briefing on the ordinance promulgated on 31 August 2020 by the President of Pakistan, the cabinet members termed the move was against the “Constitution of Pakistan”.
“The Constitution establishes the ownership of the provincial government on the lands, the islands, and the land in the sea located within its territorial jurisdiction,” the members said in the statement.
“The cabinet said that the ordinance, setting aside the conditions set by the provincial government, declared the islands located in the territorial jurisdiction of the Sindh and Balochistan as the property of the federal government,” the statement added.
The provincial cabinet said that the ordinance was “an attempt to trample the rights of the people of Sindh”.
It has decided to write a letter to the federal government asking it to withdraw the ordinance which has “denied the rights of the provincial government and its people”.
