29 January 2005	Saturday	18 Zilhaj 1425

HYDERABAD, Jan 28: District naib nazims have rejected the proposal of the Sindh government to appoint any administrators replacing the district governments.

They called upon the president, the prime minister and the NRB to allow the existing bodies to complete their tenure in accordance with the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001.

They were talking to newsmen before attending a meeting at the Hyderabad district council on Friday. District Naib Nazim Nawab Rashid Ali Khan, Karachi City District Naib Nazim Tariq Hassan, Iqbal Dawood of Sukkur, Mehmood Rajput of Sanghar, Shaukat Malkani of Thatta and Sohail Mirza of Badin were present on the occasion.

Nawab Rashid said the SLGO had no provision for appointment of administrators and any amendments should be done before the next district governments. Tariq Hassan expressed the hope that administrators would not be appointed because the president had extended the tenure of the district governments.

"I fail to understand what kind of democrats those people are who want to appoint administrators in place of elected local bodies", he said. He claimed the people had benefited from the system despite bureaucratic impediments to it.

"It is the president's prerogative to appoint administrators or extend their tenure. But I hope no such decision will be taken which will be repugnant to the ordnance", he said. He said the curtailment of seats of councillors would badly affect representation of women in UCs.

He said naib nazims should be given powers to counter signs annual confidential reports of policemen and bureaucrats which would serve a determent to them and they would not be able to resist genuine works of the councils.

He proposed that 50 per cent funds should be kept at the disposal of district naib nazims so that they could give their own schemes like the head of the district government.

Mr Hassan disapproved the idea of no-confidence motion against convenors on the ground that they should be treated like speakers of the provincial and national assemblies. He said they should not be given unbridled powers and favoured some check and balance on naib nazims as well.

He said it was upto the district nazim and naib nazim to resign if he or she intended to contest local bodies' polls. Iqbal Dawood, Dr Mehmood Rajput and Shaukat Malkani agreed with the contention of Tariq Hassan and said that with appointment of administrators the work done by the district governments would be destroyed.

They said the bureaucrats wanted to earn money in remaining two to three months and it should be decided whether they would be convenors or naib nazims simultaneously or there was some distinction.

Later, at a meeting they decided to hold a meeting in Karachi on Feb 7 in which naib nazims of all districts would be invited to discuss the situation. Meanwhile, talking to Dawn Tariq Hassan called for merit-based accountability of all government functionaries either working on the district, provincial or federal level.

Mr Hassan said it was an old practice that when people left the government they were accused of mal practices and corruption. He said it was good to see that the SLGC had decided to send a reference against the CDG Karachi to the NAB.

"We have no problems because our hands are clean. We are not worried about it but we will certainly want to see that accountability should be across the board", he said.

About the CDG and the local bodies' ministry confrontation over different issues, he said such problems were witnessed all over the country but this was not the solution to problems.