SWABI, June 8: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the local district government are at odds with each other, with the former wanting to take credit for the various completed projects in Swabi, and the latter resisting it on the plea that they were initiated and funded by it.

Official sources in the district government told Dawn on condition of anonymity here Sunday that the Government Girls College, Topi, was in the final stages of completion, and the district government had spent Rs2 million on it. The remaining money was provided by the provincial government, with the NWFP governor playing a key role in its sanctioning.

Now, the MMA’s elected members of the National Assembly and the provincial assembly are seeking to take credit for these schemes by putting their own plaques on the project sites, official sources claimed.

Similarly, the Girls Degree College in the Kernel Sher Kili was also initiated and completed by the district government, with the NWFP government having laid the foundation stone.

The sources said the Kalu Khan bridge had been completed at a sum of Rs10 million. The district Nazim and other members of the district council had diverted their own allocated development funds for its construction.

Likewise, the Yar Hussain bridge, which links the whole Yar Hussain belt with the tehsil Chota Lahore and provides a short-cut route to Jehangira/Peshawar, was also constructed by the district government at a cost of Rs8 million.

The Shahmansoor Hospital Complex is also expected to be completed very soon. Its construction was started during Benazir Bhutto’s second term in government but when Nawaz Sharif assumed power for a second time in 1997, the NWFP government stopped work on it. The sources said when the incumbent governor visited the district after the local bodies elections, he announced a Rs400 million allocation for the hospital. Work on it resumed later on.

However, the sources said, the governor directed the district government to share some of the financial burden, and the district government allocated a big chunk of money for its construction.

The sources said the rivalry between the district government and MMA had been continuing unabated for the last few weeks, and both were fighting for their respective political influence.

The district government, the sources said, had already declared that it will not allow the MMA leaders to get credit for projects neither started nor financially funded by them.

In contrast, the MMA leaders and workers have vowed that they will install their plaques on the completed projects.

The public money had been spent on them, and they were the real elected representatives.