Under their thumb: ‘LG members at mercy of bureaucracy’

Elected representatives say they await powers, funds, honoraria

PESHAWAR:

In stark contradiction to claims made by the K-P government that powers have been devolved to the grass-roots level, the Nazims and Councillors Ittehad said the bureaucracy still wielded the actual authority.

Perhaps these local government representatives have genuine cause for concern as they were unable to spend a single rupee of their allocated budget on development since taking charge nine months ago.

Nazims of village councils hailing from different districts including Bannu, Karak, Kohat, Lakki Marwat and DI Khan set up camp outside the K-P Assembly on Monday night. Even though the protest camp is loud and festive—where nazims quite literally dance to their own beat and drums—protesters mean business. They complain of their sense of helplessness in front of the bureaucracy.

At whose discretion?

Local government department officials said fund utilisation must be carried out according to the finance department’s budget rules and the planning and development department’s guidelines for the three tiers.

“We can’t let nazims use development funds as their own discretionary kitty,” said an official of the LG department familiar with the matter.

The protesters said Rs500,000 for expenditures of village council offices was transferred to the joint accounts of the nazim and secretary of Bannu, Mardan and Charsadda, while the village councils of the others were yet to receive the funds.

They added development funds should also be transferred to the joint accounts so that nazims could easily use them.

Mr Postman

“The development funds are deliberately kept at the disposal of the LG assistant director (AD), while we [the nazims] cannot use them at our discretion,” complained Mardan village council nazim Sajid Iqbal Mohmand. “Right now, development funds are with the LG AD and not in a joint account.”

Mohmand explained the LG AD asked the secretary of village councils to pinpoint development schemes in the area. “We will now only highlight schemes in our villages and give the lists to the secretaries who will make the PC-1 for the project. It will then be processed through the AD and the role of the nazim in the entire process is that of a postman.”

Keeping promises

The protesters also demanded salaries which they refer to as honoraria promised by the chief minister to them in a meeting on December 28. “We want honoraria not only for nazim and naib nazims, but also for village councillors,” Mohmand stressed. He added Rs20,000 monthly honoraria was promised for the nazim and Rs15,000 for the naib nazim, but the amount was yet to be provided.

An LG official said a meeting was set with the finance department on Tuesday to sort out the issue, but the provincial secretary’s father passed away the night before.

Protesters also want to wind up the contract system for the execution of development schemes. “The Communication and Works department will have to execute our development schemes; we can do the same at lower costs if we are allowed to use development funds,” stressed Mohammad Zubair, a nazim from Bannu.

Zubair added LG representatives wanted tenders for their projects to be issued from the nazim’s office rather the AD.

Marching on

At the cheery camp, protesters demanded the Supreme Court take suo motu notice of the situation.

“We have been elected under the Local Government Act 2013 and now the rules of business of the same law should apply to us,” highlighted Said Alam, the chief organiser of the village councillors’ alliance from the southern areas of the province. “We don’t know what our duties and responsibilities are when everything is done by government officials,” said Sanaullah, who is the general secretary. He said their offices were yet to be constructed by the government.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2016.