May 29, 2002	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 16,1423

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PESHAWAR, May 28: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said that the government would ensure the working of the local government system in accordance with the spirit envisaged at the time of its creation and vowed that every difficulty and hurdle would be removed in its smooth functioning.

Presiding over the monthly meeting of the district Nazimeen at the Cabinet Room of Civil Secretariat here on Monday, the governor said that a committee, headed by the minister for local government and rural development, had already initiated the process and had completed the evaluation of things on ground in six districts in this connection.

Similarly, he added, a Local Government Commission has also been constituted which would also start functioning shortly. In fact, he said, the government was going an extra mile to strengthen the local government system and expected same degree of performance from the district governments.  

In this connection, he said, transparency in the performance at each level is necessary. Although utmost efforts had been made to create a built-in process to decrease the non-development expenditures, efforts must continue to save maximum resources for the development and well-being of the people, he added.

The governor directed the Nazimeen to ensure that rules and regulations were being followed in letter and spirit by different tiers under their control.

The meeting was informed that a soft loan amounting to Rs1.5 billion had been offered to the people of drought-affected areas, out of which Rs408 million had already been recovered. In this connection, the meeting agreed to invest this amount in agriculture sector, specially in the irrigation, hydel power generation and construction of small dams.

Referring to the federal-funded mega projects, the governor said everything in respect of Gomal Zam Dam project was progressing in smoothly and hopefully Rs12 billion would be spent on this project during the next few years.

The meeting reviewed the performance of education sector and noted certain deficiencies in this connection.