PESHAWAR, Dec 27: Provincial Minister for Local Government Sardar Idrees Khan has said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf will be apprised about problems faced by the local government system because of flaws in the devolution plan at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Speaking at a seminar organized by the Civil Awareness Promotion Society at the press club on Monday to discuss the success, failures and suggestions for improvement in the LG system, the minister hoped that the president would agree to the proposal of amending the devolution plan to make it more effective and result-oriented.

"All the four provincial local government ministers have been experiencing problems regarding local bodies and would suggest some amendments to the devolution plan during the meeting with President Musharraf," he added.

The minister said the NWFP government would suggest reduction in the number of union council nazims to 11, while the Punjab government wanted their number reduced to 13.

Sardar Idrees claimed that the provincial government never stopped the development funds of districts, adding that some of the district governments failed to utilize them in a proper manner.

Because of lack of proper planning, some of the local governments failed to set their priorities and when the month of June came nearer they made futile attempts to utilize these funds, the minister said.

Speaking about the problems being faced by councillors, he said they should openly discuss all their problems during council sessions and try to solve them by themselves. Sardar Idrees assured councillors that special grants would be provided to districts whose performance was found satisfactory.

He said the MMA government had no plans to limit powers of the district governments. On the contrary, the provincial government was planning to delegate more powers to districts so that the masses problems could be solved at their door steps.

Speaking on the occasion, Peshawar Naib Nazim Dr Iqbal Khalil said the educational criterion for taking part in the local bodies elections should be enhanced and suggested that graduation should be made an eligibility criterion for district and tehsil council nazims and matriculation for contesting elections.

Dr Khalil also suggested making district nazims answerable to the provincial government. Town-1 Nazim Haroon Bilour in his speech urged the district councillors to realize their role and said without their approval the nazim could not spend even a single penny as he was supposed to get annual budgets passed from district councils. He also underlined the role of the local government commission and asked it to monitor the performance of district councils.