Ineffective governance: LGs rue lack of access to funding

The PTI government amended the Local Government Act of 2013 to make it hard to utilise development funds

PESHAWAR:

Despite being in office for the past nearly two years, local government representatives across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have not even received a single penny for development projects and the populace that elected them is now demanding answers.

The local bodies election which concluded in K-P in March of 2022 were held when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was in power in the province. However, the ruling party failed to carve out a win for the mayoral election of the provincial capital, Peshawar. Resultantly, the PTI made amendments to Sections 30 and 53 of the Local Government Act of 2013, which made it difficult for local bodies’ representatives to use and utilise development projects, as per sources familiar with the nature of the amendments. Shumaila Khan, Member of the Pishtakhara Tehsil, confirmed this information.

Read PTI, MQM-P march against amended LG Act

“Even though local government representatives are allocated a significant chunk of development funds, it is hard for us to use them ever since the PTI made amendments to the law,” explained Shumaila, “therefore, we cannot even do basic work like street repairs.” Concurring with Shumaila, Himayat Ullah Mayar, the Mayor of Mardan and former member of the national assembly, said that every democratic party has weakened local governments when they have not carved out wins. “The PTI did the same. Hence, for the past two years we are just elected representatives on paper. We have no power or money to help the people who elected us,” he regretted, further adding that it was unfortunate that local governments were only functional when a dictator was in power.

Shah Khalid, the Tehsil Chairman for Landi Kotal, agreeing with Himayat, told the Express Tribune that people in the merged areas were ecstatic during the elections that they would get local government representatives for the first time. “However, all that happiness has since vanished because the representatives they elected have not been able to do any work for them.”

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“The K-P government keeps promising that they will release development funds and allow us to utilise them but all of those are empty promises,” lamented Shah, further adding that it was unfortunate that the PTI had crippled local bodies with the amendments to the local government law. When asked about the lack of funding to local government representatives, Shaukat Ali, Deputy Secretary Finance for the Local Government Department, replied that it was no secret that the amendments to the local bodies’ law had made the utilisation of development funds impossible. “However, there is little we can do right now. The caretaker government cannot amend laws, so we have to wait for an elected government to come in and empower local bodies.”

When asked if there was a solution for the short-term, Shaukat told the Express Tribune: “The current government can bring in a special Ordinance, which is promulgated by the Governor and is effective for a few months, and release funds to the local bodies’ representatives.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2023.