August 31, 2006	Thursday	Sha'aban 6, 1427

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KOHAT, Aug 30: The district and sessions judge of Karak on Wednesday stayed the approval of 81 citizen community boards, claimed to have been fraudulently sanctioned by elected representatives and the finance department.

The national manager of the Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE) and in-charge of bar associations and press clubs, Dr Anwar Butt, told Dawn that four aggrieved parties had moved the court a few days ago, alleging that 81 of 146 CCBs belonged to union council nazims or their blue-eyed people, and had been approved in violation of CCB rules and merit by the district finance department.

The judge ordered freezing of the funds of the 81 CCBs. The hearing was adjourned till Sept 2.

Mr Butt said they had been receiving complaints of anomalies in the approval of CCB funds for a couple of years after which they had decided to establish community empowerment desks in every district to provide free legal assistance to people of rural areas.

The federal government had made it mandatory for local governments to allocate 25 per cent of their annual development budget for development of backward areas through CCBs.

Dr Butt said that so far more than 25,000 CCBs had been registered in the country, and 630,000 were engaged in carrying out schemes through CCBs.

Local governments have spent Rs1.33 billion on development projects under the DTCE programme with a public partnership component of Rs413 million till March 2006.

JIRGA POSTPONED: A tribal jirga was postponed here on Wednesday to fix the responsibility of murder of a woman and a khasdar.

The jirga was convened by Mirikhel and Shagikhel tribes of Darra Adamkhel in the frontier region of Kohat.

It could not reach a decision after preliminary hearing and would resume its deliberations at a next date to be conveyed by the administration.

According to an official report, a khasdar, Hamid, who owned a bus stop in Sheenikalay, exchanged hot words with a driver who had submitted challan to another bus stand on Tuesday.

The driver came after some time along with other armed men and started firing on Hamid from the rooftop of a shop. As a result Hamid and a woman sitting in a coaster died on the spot, while four passers-by were injured. The woman was resident of Mazidkhel area of FR Kohat.