K-P reforms: Cabinet approves Local Government Act 2012

496 decisions have been made by the provincial cabinet out of which 480 have been executed, says Hussain.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) cabinet approved the 2012 Local Government Act (LGA) during its 54th meeting on Wednesday.

The Act now has to be approved and signed by K-P Chief Minister (CM) Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, said provincial spokesperson Mian Iftikhar Hussain, during a briefing at the Officers Mess.

A report was drafted in May 2012 under the Establishment Secretary to revise the divisional and district administrative structure for the LGA 2012. Hussain added that the provincial cabinet approved the Act during a meeting with the CM.

Under the restructuring proposed, the 25 district coordination officers (DCO) currently employed in K-P will now work under basic pay scale (BPS)-19 instead of BPS-20. At the divisional level, a commissioner will be employed at BPS 20, except for the commissioner for Peshawar who will be at the BPS-21 level.

Likewise, there will be a district health officer in BPS-19, a deputy district officer of health in scale 18 and six health coordinators who will continue working at the health departments in their districts.

The Communications and Works Department will work in nine circles in the province under a superintendent engineer for each circle. There would be a total of 50 district education officer (female) and deputy education officers to administer girls’ schools at the districts level.



In the Public Health Department, there will be two officers each as chief engineers, directors, superintendent engineers and technical officers along with four design engineers to work at the headquarters of the department. In districts, there will be seven superintendent engineers, 25 executive engineers and 60 sub-division officers to shoulder the department.

No changes have been made in the Agriculture Department.

Hussain further said that there were 47 new posts brought into BPS 17 making them a total of 579 employees. He added that the LGA would reduce the financial burden on the provincial exchequer.

“The provincial cabinet’s performance can be judged from its implementation ratio,” he said. So far, 496 decisions have been made by the provincial cabinet out of which 480 have been executed and the remaining 16 are in the process of implementation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2012.