February 25, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 23, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: Provinces will be deprived of the annual grant allocated for district governments if they violate Local Government Ordinance and Police Order-2002, an official of National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) said.

Speaking to Dawn on Monday, he said the government and the bureau were quite anxious about some changes proposed by some provinces in the devolution plan and police order.

He said the government had allocated Rs1 billion for providing grants to the provinces in fiscal 2003-04, that would be extended to the district governments, he said.

The official said the government was worried about demands regarding revival of magistracy system in Punjab and old police system in two districts of Sindh.

He said Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali had directed the NRB to settle these issues with the provinces so that the new system of district government could be implemented in its true spirit.

The NRB official said that a meeting of the National Steering Committee of Devolution (NSCD) took place on Feb 20, and another meeting of the body would be held shortly to settle the disputes.

The committee has been given a task to prepare agenda items and steer implementation of decisions of the Prime Minister’s Committee on Devolution (PMCD). The PMCD is chaired by the premier and its members are: chief ministers, NWFP governor and federal ministers for finance, interior and defence.

When contacted, NRB Chairman Daniyal Aziz said the Police Ordinance 2002, was prepared and implemented after a 50 year’s effort to bring positive changes in police making it at par with modern investigation system.

He said that before the order of 2002, some 14 commission reports had been issued in the last 50 years for the improvement of police system in the country, but unfortunately none of them could be implemented.

Mr Aziz said that magistracy system in Punjab had been revived only for three months to maintain law and order on Basant festival.

He said the local government ordinance covered all the issues related to the district administration, therefore there was no need to revive an out-dated system.

“However, if provinces wanted to make some amendments to the ordinance, they should come and discuss with the NRB so that their problems could be resolved,” he said.