September 18, 2002	Wednesday	Rajab 10, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: The Committee on Devolution will meet here on Sept 22 to discuss the performance of the National Reconstruction Bureau about the devolution from Centre to provinces and provinces to local governments.

Official sources told Dawn here on Tuesday that the NRB Chairman, Lt-Gen Tanvir Naqvi (retired), would brief the meeting about the performance of the bureau in the light of the recommendations made by various monitoring teams which visited all the four provinces recently. President Gen Pervez Musharraf will preside over the meeting.

The sources said various monitoring teams have concluded that there existed weaknesses in the devolution process which needed to be removed to ensure smooth functioning of the local governments.

These committees concluded that there was no problem in the system and the devolution law, rather there were implementation problems.

Bureaucrats specially in Balochistan and Sindh have been blamed for not cooperating with the local and districts governments by not releasing timely funds to the Nazimeen.

“Funds reach to the districts but they do not further reach to tehsil and union council levels,” a source said. He said while performance of the Karachi city government was better, situation in Quetta was not satisfactory due to lack of coordination.

The sources said this would be the last meeting of the Committee on Devolution and that was why all the details with regard to the devolution process would be placed before for it for final discussion and taking new decisions to ensure the success of the devolution process.