PESHAWAR, April 2: Provincial Minister for Local Bodies Sardar Muhammad Idrees has termed the Local Government Ordinance 2001 against the spirit of the devolution plan and provincial autonomy and said the NWFP government has decided to propose amendments to the law.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday at the Peshawar Press Club, he said that not only the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government had some reservations about the ordinance, but Punjab and Sindh also wanted certain amendments to the law.

He said: “ Some amendments to the ordinance are inevitable and the provincial government wants to resolve this issue once and for all.” According to the 1973 Constitution, local bodies were purely a provincial subject, therefore the MMA government intended to bring about amendments to the law, he explained.

The provincial government, he said, wanted to amend some sections of the ordinance including sections 3, 23, 24, 42 (2), 129 and completely remove the local government ordinance from schedule six of the Constitution.

Under the Constitution, the laws included in schedule six cannot be amended by the National Assembly, provincial assembly or the government concerned without a prior permission of the president.

Mr Idrees said the prime minister was heading a steering committee to look into the controversial sections of the ordinance and make it acceptable for the provinces. All the chief ministers and local government ministers were members of the committee, he said.

In reply to a question, he said the provincial government did not oppose or reject the local government system, but wanted to remove shortcomings from the ordinance to make the system more transparent.

He said the law did not properly explore linkages among district governments, tehsil and municipal administrators and union councils.

The minister told reporters that the Local Government Commission was receiving complaints against some Nazims. The commission, he said, so far had completed audit against four district Nazims and inquiry against other Nazims of the province would also be conducted.

He said the provincial government had no intentions to curtail administrative and financial powers of the district governments or delegate powers of the district Nazims to district coordination officers.

NAZIMS RESIGN: Our correspondent from Nowshera adds that serious differences have surfaced between provincial government and district governments as the former is alleged by the Nazims and councillors to have been working to undermine the local government system and slash the powers of Nazims.