Sneak attack: LG funds frozen in surprise move

KARACHI: Instead of empowering the local bodies, the Sindh government has decided to freeze their accounts.

A letter by the finance department to the State Bank, National Bank and Sindh Bank stated, “We want to freeze all the accounts of these councils in government and commercial banks”.

The decision has irked the newly-elected local bodies’ representatives. Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC)’s deputy mayor Arshad Vohra said that no official from the government has taken them into confidence over the issue and it has created resentment among the mayors and chairpersons of all councils in Sindh. “The salary of the employees and ongoing development works will come to a standstill,” lamented Vohra.



“I don’t know what kind of revenge is being taken from local bodies’ representatives,” he said, adding that the provincial government needs to give an explanation.

Vohra appealed to the chief minister and local government minister to reconsider. “Diwali is around the corner and with this decision salaries cannot be released to Hindus working in municipal bodies,” he added.

Local government (LG) minister Jam Khan Shoro said the funds have been stopped temporarily due to alteration in the geographical location of some constituencies. Limits of some District Municipal Corporations have been restructured after delimitation so the government wants to fix the problem by distributing funds properly, he said, adding that the issue will be resolved within a week.  Meanwhile, sources in the LG department disclosed that the provincial government has recently put up a summary to launch the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) to distribute funds under multiple criteria among districts.

“It has been a long-standing demand of all parliamentary parties to form a provincial finance commission on the pattern of the National Finance Commission to distribute the funds, so the government has accelerated this process and the accounts will remain frozen until the PFC is structured,” said a senior official in the department, referring to the Sindh LG act which states that resources will be distributed through the commission.

The act further states that the finance minister will head the commission, with the appointment of the LG minister as co-chairperson. Meanwhile, the secretaries of planning and development, LG, rural development, public health and engineering and town planning, mayor of KMC, mayor of a corporation, chairperson of a district council, a chairperson of a municipal committee and two professional members from the private sector are to be nominated by the government as committee members.

“There will be a PFC secretariat within the finance department,” the law states. It also calls for transparent distribution of funds.  When contacted, LG secretary Ramzan Awan said there was a distribution issue, given the bifurcation of constituencies, therefore the accounts have been frozen. However, he refused to comment on the formation of the PFC. “We have forwarded a summary to the chief minister to streamline the release of the funds to the local bodies and this issue will be resolved within days not weeks,” he said, adding that the upcoming salaries of the employees will not be stopped.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2016.