May 5, 2006	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, May 4: National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) Chairman Daniyal Aziz on Thursday asked district and tehsil governments across the country to get their annual financial reports audited by the district public accounts committees.

“This is the legal duty of all the district and tehsil governments to present their accounts to the committees annually. But unfortunately, since inception, not even a single annual financial report passed through this process,” Mr Aziz said.

He was speaking at the concluding session of a two-day international conference on “Fiscal Decentralisation” here on Thursday. Organised by the NRB and the World Bank Institute (WBI), the conference provided opportunities to experts from Switzerland, Canada, South Africa and India to share their experiences on devolution and local government systems with representatives of district governments from the four provinces.

Later, speaking at a news briefing, Mr Aziz said despite criticism and initial loopholes, the local government system was now being cherished across the country, particularly after the second local bodies elections.

People had now realised that they could be provided better services at their door steps by this system. The government had also amended the system from time to time which were yielding positive results, he said.

In response to a question, regarding jurisdiction crisis emerged after the bifurcation of a number of districts including Rawalpindi, Mr Aziz said:

“Rules are available with the NRB to deal with the crisis. If the rules of the book are followed, I am sure solution to such problems are very easy”.

Replying to another query, he said the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) was one of the strongest critics of the local government system because it was not in their interest. Therefore, the people should not totally rely on the statistics of FBS about the local governments but should also go through the last year’s Economic Survey which showed the track record of the new system.

He said after the local governments, now funds were being distributed among the districts, tehsils and union councils on a set formula. That was why each and every union council of the country had received funds for various development projects. Before the devolution plan, a large number of tehsil and districts were not receiving the funds they deserved as fund allocations were politically driven.

“After the devolution system, projects hanging there for 10 to 20 years have now also been established,” he claimed.

He said money collected through octroi and Zila tax would now be spent on districts. Previously, money collected through both the taxes were spent on cities. As a result, people in the rural areas subsidised development projects in cities. The best example was Lahore, where mega development projects were carried out on the tax money collected from the rural areas of Punjab.

The NRB chairman said efforts were being made to make the local government system totally accountable to the people at the union council level and enable it to raise its own revenue.

Dr Anwar Shah of the WBI said 70 per cent of the taxes in the Scandinavian countries were being collected by the local governments and in return provided best services to the people at gross roots level. He said local governments in Pakistan should be encouraged to collect taxes and generate their own revenue.

He said local government should be accountable to its electorate and adhere to appropriate safeguard to ensure serving of public interests with integrity. Legal-institutional reforms might be needed to make local governments to deal with in-between elections accountability such as introducing a citizen’s charter and provision for recall of public officials.