Prioritising: Councillors should focus on civic issues: minister Inayatullah

LG representatives across province take oath today

PESHAWAR: Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan urged the newly-elected local government representatives to focus on civic issues and plan development schemes that provide relief to the poor.

According to a handout issued on Friday, he was talking to various delegations of councillor-elects at his office in the city. “Councillors should develop water supply, health, education and sanitation schemes.” Inayatullah said the new LG system translates the hopes of the masses who want their concerns to be addressed. “Besides their local resources, they will be given an extra 30% funds hence every district will receive a maximum of Rs4 million from the government.”

Taking oath

Almost three months after winning the confidence of the people, the councillors across K-P will take oath today. Returning officers, who accepted nomination papers of the respective district, tehsil/town and village/neighbourhood councillor-elects, will administer oath to them.



This was said by Election Commission of Pakistan K-P Spokesperson Sohail Ahmad. However, he could not provide the exact number of LG members who will take office today.

The spokesperson added elections for nazims and naib nazims of the councils will be held on the very next day, Sunday. Ahmad said the same will apply to those village and neighbourhood councils where general seat candidates have been elected unopposed. “Elections for nazims and naib nazims of those councils will also be held on Sunday.” Also as per the K-P LG Act 2015, in the aforementioned councils, the candidates securing the highest and the second highest number of votes are automatically elected as the nazims and naib nazims of their respective councils.

Another ECP official said, “It’s hard to categorise statistics at the moment. However, around 300 village councils have councillor-elects who won unopposed.”

He said the provincial government and law-enforcement agencies are already on board over the process. “Stringent security measures have been taken,” said the official. “Both the police are government are on the same page.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2015.