February 29, 2008	Friday	Safar 21, 1429

PESHAWAR, Feb 28: Through a unanimously adopted resolution, Town Council-II on Thursday urged the newly elected assembly members to respect the public mandate and let the local governments complete their tenure.

A meeting of the council was held with its convener Advocate Israrullah in the chair. Nazims of different union councils addressed the meeting, which also approved the minutes of the previous session.

Shahi Bala UC Naib Nazim Mohammad Abid Khan, who tabled the resolution, said that representatives of the local bodies were serving the people at grassroots level and they deserved to complete their tenure.

Israrullah expressed the hope that the newly elected members would further strengthen the local governments system by empowering the representatives and allocating funds for betterment of the neglected areas.

He said that with the establishment of the local governments system a visible positive change was witnessed in the society and its main beneficiary were the downtrodden people.

Town Nazim Mohammad Sharif said the local bodies were playing vital role in solution to the real problems of the lower class. He said that the next government should extend cooperation to the local governments system.

Other speakers including Shaukat Hayat, Farzand Ali Khan, Nazir Mohammad, Sahibzada Ashraf, Syed Rehman Khan, Romana Ajmal and Zafirullah also spoke about the functions of the local government system and gave some suggestions about its further improvement.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the Town Council-I was also convened which was marred by lack of quorum. After recitation from the Holy Quran the participants raised the issue of lack of quorum.

The convener Niaz Mohammad said that presence of 18 members was must for convening a session of the council according to rules, but regretted that only 15 members were present in the meeting.

He said the members had already been imparted training about the importance of meetings and were personally requested to be punctual but to no avail.

Mr Niaz pointed out that the meeting of the previous month was also postponed due to lack of quorum and the absent members were warned to be regular but they did not take it serious. He said next meeting would be convened within few days after the issuance of notices to the absent members.

Town Nazim Haji Shaukat Ali said the members were not taking interest in attending the monthly meetings which he said was an act of irresponsibility.

He asked the convener to issue notices to the absent representatives and added that membership of those members, who remained absent for three consecutive meetings, should be cancelled.