LAHORE, April 19: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool has reportedly found the implementation of the local government system in the province on track, asking the provincial government to remove some major shortcomings to make it more effective.

According to official sources, the governor has held meetings with top officials of the province, including Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, suggesting them to make the system more effective by taking steps like activating the provincial safety commission.

He had started actively monitoring the system after a letter by President Gen Musharraf to the four governors expressing his apprehensions about “hurdles in the way of complete implementation of the system,” introduced by the National Reconstruction Bureau under his three-year rule.

In the Punjab, the system was introduced under Governor Maqbool but it was being felt that the necessary steps which still were required to be taken, were being delayed after the induction of the political government late last year.

The letter by the president had also activated the NRB which held a moot of journalists from all over Pakistan in Bhurbun early this month asking them to identify hurdles in the system.

According to sources, the governor was told in recent briefings that the Punjab was ahead of others provinces regarding implementation of the system.

Inactive provincial public safety commission, despite its notification by the government, was found to be the major shortcoming, sources said, adding the governor asked the authorities to fully activate it.

He found the policy on transfer and posting of officials in the district governments was creating troubles for their smooth functioning and directed that all departments should formulate a clear policy.

Sources said absence of a system to enforce municipal laws was found to be another major flaw in the system. It was found that the district governments were finding it impossible to remove encroachments or put a check on the production and sale of adulterated food, spurious drugs and pesticides in the absence of any legal authority.

Previously these problems used to be tackled through the legal authority of the executive magistrates who, besides holding courts, would conduct raids to nab the violators of the municipal laws.

Sources said the governor found the funding of the district governments clean but felt the absence of the community boards which were required to utilize 25 per cent of the development budgets of all district governments.

He was told that the boards could not be constituted because of the delay in the notification of the rules.

The governor said as the rules had been framed, community boards should immediately be formed so that a major requirement of the local government law could be fulfilled without any fail.

Sources said the Governor’s House was further assimilating the system and would send its report to the president in near future, pointing out the state of affairs regarding the local government system in the province.