KARACHI, June 17: Setting aside all apprehensions about the new local government system being wrapped up, a senior official of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) has urged the district Nazims not to be misled by such a disinformation campaign asserting that the new system has come to stay.

“In fact, a wave of disinformation against the local government’s devolution plan was there even before the Aug 14, 2001, when the new system came into being, and those opposing it had even said that the new system would not take off,” member NRB, Naeem-ul-Haq said.

He was speaking to Nazims and Naib Nazims of various districts of Sindh at the inaugural session of a three-day “Capacity-Building Workshop” here on Tuesday. The workshop has been organized under the aegis of National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA). As many as 28 Nazims, Naib Nazims and senior presiding officers, belonging to different district governments of the province are participating in the workshop.

Provincial Minister for Local Government, Mohammad Hussain, who was to preside over the workshop’s inaugural session, could not make it.

Admitting that bureaucrats and other vested interests, not happy with the new local government system, were creating hurdles in the smooth functioning of the devolution plan, he said district Nazims must prove themselves perfectly efficient administrators as they were heading 11 groups of offices, besides being responsible for law and order situation in their respective jurisdictions.

Highlighting the importance of the new system, Mr Haq said that since the new system was based on bottom-to-top down approach as against the previous top-to-bottom approach, it was bound to bring a positive cultural change in the society where people’s problems were being solved in a much better way.

He pointed out that the devolution plan, which had replaced the old colonial system, was aimed at empowering the people through their participation and thus, the hangover of political and bureaucratic approach would vanish with the passage of time.

FIVE Ds: Apprising about the salient features of the devolution plan, the NRB member said that it consisted of ‘five Ds’: devolution of political power, decentralization of administrative authority, distribution of resources to districts, de-concentration of management functions and diffusion of power-authority nexus.