ISLAMABAD, June 10: North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani assured President Pervez Musharraf in a meeting on Tuesday that he would withdraw all the notifications designed to reduce local governments’ powers, National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) Chairman Daniyal Aziz said.

Mr Aziz told a news conference that the president had warned the bureaucracy to stop sabotaging the local government system by creating rift between the provincial and district governments.

He said the president had held separate meetings in Peshawar with Mr Durrani and his team and 24 district Nazims who had tendered their resignations to protest against the alleged interference of the provincial government.

The NRB chief said the president had asked the provincial government to withdraw all its notifications issued to curtail the powers of the district governments.

Mr Aziz said the provincial government had been given 10 days to withdraw its notifications.

Meanwhile, a mode would be finalized to amend the local government laws to meet the demands of the NWFP government, he said.

Mr Aziz said the NWFP government agreed to withdraw all notifications issued to change the local government system in the province.

“The Nazims will take back their resignations if the NWFP government withdraws the controversial notifications,” he said.

Referring to the removal of signboards in the NWFP, the president, he said, had asked the provincial government that such acts were giving a bad name to the country.

The president told the provincial government that the world was closely watching the policies and acts of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government.

Responding to a question, Mr Aziz said the provincial government had received clear orders of the president that the local government system would remain intact in the entire country and would rather be improved through amendments in the laws.

The NWFP government was assured that its demand regarding changes in the local government system would be met but those changes would not affect the philosophy of the system.

He said the bureaucracy of the NWFP had misguided the government in the province as a result of which the politicians could not understand the local government system.