Money Matters: Accounts of all councils to be open to audit

KARACHI:

Unlike the tenure of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf during which audits of the district governments were not conducted, the draft for the Sindh Local Government Law 2013 states that accounts of every council will be audited and the authority carrying out the audit will have access to all the books, records and other document pertaining to the accounts.  After the receiving special audit report of a council, the government may take appropriate action if need be. 

The draft also mentions that the government may frame model tax schedules and a council shall be guided in levying tax, rates, toll or fee - including fire tax, conservancy tax, drainage tax, fee for slaughtering animals, fee on conversion of land, fee on licences, market fee on land owned by KMC, tolls on roads and bridges owned and maintained by KMC, charged parking on the road and tax on transfer of immovable property.

With reference to the Provincial Finance commission, the law says that the finance minister will be appointed as its chairperson and local government minister as co-chairperson.  Two members of the provincial assembly, finance, planning and development secretary, mayor of a metropolitan corporation, mayor of a corporation, a district council chairperson, municipal committee chairperson and two professionals nominated by the government.

The commission will fix the formula for resource distribution between the government and the councils. The union councils or union committees will no longer have to wait on the districts to release their funds, but will directly get the amount from the finance commission.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2013.