Sharif seeks to establish civilian hold on Pak cantonments

As part of efforts to establish civilian supremacy in the country, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has formed a committee to give an enhanced role to public representatives in local governments in cantonment boards, a media report today said.
Though the Election Commission has announced local body elections in cantonment boards on November 3 this year, the 12-member committee is reviewing former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's 2002 ordinance which gave a station commander, usually a brigadier, all financial and executive powers of a cantonment board being its president.
How many powers of a station commander would be curtailed and how much power the civilian public representatives elected by the voters would get is yet to be known, The News daily reported.

According to the 2002 ordinance, the station commander of a cantonment board was also empowered to appoint an equal number of officers as members of the board as those who were elected by the people.
The report said due to this it was the station commander who called the shots instead of the public representatives because he always had a majority on the board.
The station commander also had the veto power over the board as per Musharraf's ordinance.
Sharif would soon be presented a summary of the draft seeking amendments in the Cantonment Ordinance 2002 in line with Article 140 A of the constitution, the report said.

Empowering the public representatives in cantonment boards is a real test case for Sharif, the report said.