KARACHI: Free hand to City Council committees, chiefs pledged
KARACHI, Dec 22: The Nazim of Karachi, Naimatullah Khan, has said that powers and functions of committees working under the City Council have been defined in the SLGO-2001. The city government, he added, would ensure that the committees were able to exercise their powers and fulfil their responsibilities.
He was speaking at a meeting held at the City Government Complex. He held out the assurance that the chairmen of the committees would be provided all the facilities permissible under the relevant law.
He told the meeting that the council could utilize the defunct KMC building whereas the committee chairmen could be accommodated in the vacant rooms of the building.
The meeting decided that the EDOs and officials of various departments would maintain close liaison with their respective committees and provide them necessary information about their departments.
The Nazim assured the participants of the meeting that immediate action would be taken as per the recommendations of the committee chairmen who would also be invited to the meetings of their concerned departments.
The DCO Karachi, Shafiqur Rehman Paracha, informed the meeting that directives were being issued immediately to all the officials in this regard. He said that a culture would be developed soon whereby chairmen of committees would answer to the council members questions within the House.
A committee room has been allocated to the chairmen to facilitate them convene meetings.
AUDIT SYSTEM: Addressing a big group of Nazimeen and councillors, belonging to all the groups in the City Council, the City Nazim said that a system of accounting operation would be prepared by the city government even if the development funds, allocated to union councils and the city councillors elected on reserved seats, were transferred to the UC accounts.
Naimatullah Khan said that the monitoring of work, scrutiny of accounts and audit system would remain with the city government for which a mechanism would be devised.
The Nazimeen had proposed that the budgetary allocation for the UC development schemes should be transferred to the UC accounts, if there was not hitch under the SLGO, in order to facilitate the work on these schemes and expedite development process.
Mr Khan stressed that all the Nazimeen were elected representatives and there should be no discrimination between the Nazimeen of towns, unions and city.
He pointed out that the scope and limits as well as functions and powers had been delegated to the functionaries as specified in the law. He said that all the elected representatives were working as a team for the welfare of people and development of the city.
The City Nazim recalled that the UC Nazimeen had been advised to submit their schemes so that tenders for them could be invited through one advertisement after scrutiny.
He said that it was for the UC Nazimeen to determine the high priority schemes to be implemented first.
He expressed his hope that the UC Nazimeen would take all the councillors into confidence so as to avoid any complaints in this regard.
Mr Khan said that the UC Nazimeen would act as the in-charge of the committee assigned to monitor the work on development schemes and would also be the conveners of the scrutiny committee.
At the city government level, he added, the monitoring committee would have an essential role of ensuring that the work was being carried out perfectly and in a transparent manner.
He said that the UCs’ development schemes would be monitored at the city government level and would also be subjected to audit.—APP
