May 28, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1429

PESHAWAR, May 27: The Peshawar District Council on the first day of its three-day session on Tuesday failed to discuss any issue pertaining to public welfare, but it did criticise NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour and the DCO for their “non-cooperation”.

The speakers came hard on the minister and the district coordination officer and also staged a walkout against the alleged misbehaviour of the DCO.

They smashed windowpanes of the DCO’s office, chanting slogans against him and in favour of the local bodies. The criticism on the minister led to a rumpus in the council hall where members belonging to the Awami National Party and others exchanged hot words and traded allegations.

Opposition leader Hidayatullah, Kifayatullah, Jan Gul and Nasreen Bukhari claimed to have the support of more than 42 members and that they could table a no-confidence motion against District Nazim Ghulam Ali. They said consultations on the no-trust move were on and efforts were being made to get the support of more members.

They accused the district nazim of ignoring opposition members in allocation of funds and obliging only his close associates. Earlier, as the meeting began under convener Razaullah Khan Chagharmatti, Akhunabad Union Council Nazim Alladad Khan stood on a point of order and referred to some news reports that Bashir Bilour, instead of extending cooperation to nazims, was frequently criticising the local bodies.

He claimed that since the formation of the provincial government the minister had been criticising the local bodies and was directly interfering in affairs of various union, town and district councils, creating unrest among local elected representatives. Khalid Khan, Abdul Qadir Saraf, Mohamad Umer Khan, Ghazanfar Ali, Khalid Gul, Asad Khan, Mustafa, Gauhar Ali, George Yousuf, Irshad Khan Tandar, Nazeer Baghi, Kifayatullah and Arbab Ghulam Haider took part in the discussion.

They asked the minister to avoid creating rifts among nazims of urban and rural union councils because they had equal status and all of them had the right to get equitable funds for development programmes in their respective areas. They said they would oppose any move against the local government system.

They said nazims had distributed flour in different union councils on equitable basis, but the provincial government again created crisis by stopping union councils’ quota.

They said the best forum for poor people to approach was the local governments because they had no access to parliamentarians.

Nazeer Baghi pointed out that some quacks were running clinics in different areas of the city, including Dabgari Garden, looting poor people and giving wrong prescriptions to patients.

The speakers criticised the executive district officer, health, for taking no notice of the matter and not even visiting dispensaries and rural health centres in different union councils.