KARACHI, Nov 23: Former city nazim Niamatullah Khan on Wednesday told World Bank representatives that the local government process was not scaling back, and stressed the need for independent district administrations in order to attain an overall success in the plan to devolve powers to grassroots level.

The World Bank delegates, David Savige and Salema Samjee, called on Mr Khan at the Idara Noor-i-Haq and discussed with him the issues relating to local government.

The former nazim told them that the local government process envisaged by President Pervez Musharraf had faced a major setback after 2002 general elections when the city government had been left on the mercy of the Sindh government.

“The city or district administrations have to seek prior approval from the Sindh government for any proposed development project and this dependence causes hindrances in the way of local government’s maturity.”

Niamatullah Khan pointed out that union council nazims were directly elected at community level and yet, under the law, there was no allocation of funds for them.

Autonomous status of three-tier system must be accepted by provincial assembly if desired results were needed to be achieved, he said, adding that powers and authority of a city nazim must be defined clearly.

Mr David Savige said that the World Bank’s assessment on stability of government was based on the level of participation of people in overall development of the country.

He said bridging the gap between various government tiers and public could help provide better services at grassroots level.—PPI