Abbottabad council: Opposition, treasury agree on development budget

ABBOTTABAD:

After a long tussle that spanned over two months, the opposition and treasury benches on Thursday agreed to jointly approve the long-pending development budget worth Rs281.8 million for Abbottabad tehsil for fiscal year 2015-16. The decision was taken at the council session on Thursday.

Earlier, tehsil nazim Ishaq Sulemani presented the budget on January 19 in the absence of a convener and did not provide budget copies to opposition members. This led to a protest by the opposition, leading to boycott of the proceedings.

The matter kept on lingering and the tension building, to the point the 27-member opposition from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan Muslim Leage-Nawaz and a forward block consisting of four members from PTI announced tendering en-bloc resignations on February 4. However, the matter was later referred to Local Council Commission which declared the process of budget approval as null and void.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2016.