PESHAWAR, Jan 29: After the competent authorities' refusal to entertain the claims of the district's citizen's community boards for reimbursement against their expenditure , the city government has started laying down accounting procedures to put an end to aneight-month-long controversy over the issue.

According to district government officials, the accountant-general's office has been refusing to pass the bills submitted by the boards for expenditure incurred on development works.

A total of 12 community boards have been constituted in the city. In line with the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, a board has to raise 20 per cent of the estimated cost of a development scheme.

Every district government is supposed to allocate 25 per cent of its development funds for the boards, from which 80 per cent of the cost of the schemes is met.

District Naib Nazim Dr Iqbal Khalil, when contacted, said the funds could not be reimbursed because the AG office did not clear the bills submitted by the boards.

The issue was also raised by the district coordination officer in his presentation on the decentralization of fiscal powers during a workshop held recently under the auspices of the Essential Institutional Reforms Operationalization Programme.

He told nazims and DCOs of other districts and representatives of the provincial government departments that the AG office had not passed any bill submitted by the Peshawar district's community boards during the last eight months, sources said. He said the bills had been returned with objections, according to the sources.

He said contacts made with the provincial finance department had nothelped in resolving the crisis, which was affecting the performance of the community boards.

Peshawar Town-1 Nazim Haroon Bilour said that the situation had adversely affected the implementation of the idea of involving the communities in development at the grassroots.

"Nobody knows as to who would be released the funds and who wouldspend those in the community boards," he said. Mr Khalil said the district government was preparing accounting procedures and rules to enable the boards to get their claims considered positively at the AG office.