PESHAWAR: Senior Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan on Sunday said that elected nazims lacked knowledge about the powers granted to them under the rules of business.

“Actually the nazims don’t know about the powers given to them, and that’s why they have been protesting,” he said while speaking at a press conference at Markz-i-Islami here. He directed all the deputy commissioners and tehsil municipal officers to arrange briefings for the nazims regarding the funds allocation for them.

The flaws, if there were any, in the rules of business or guidelines for the nazims of three tiers of the local governments, could be removed through negotiations among the stakeholders, the minister said.

He said an estimated Rs1.75 billion would be utilised on the establishment of offices for the village and neighbourhood councils across the province.

Besides, he added each village and neighbourhood council would be given Rs500,000 annually for meeting its expenditures. He said funds to this effect had already been approved by the provincial government.

Inayatullah Khan said under the Provincial Finance Commission, Rs4.293 billion each had been released to the district and tehsil governments, and Rs6.55 billion to the village and neighbourhood councils for carrying out development works.

To a question regarding the funds allocation, he said the released funds for the local governments won’t be lapsed if nazims failed to utilise the same in the current financial year as these funds could be utilised on the development works in the next financial year.

It is worth mentioning here that nazims of the village and neighbourhood councils have been complaining against the local government department for not releasing funds for meeting expenditures incurred on their offices and not appointing office secretaries and peons.

In Peshawar, the nazims of five neighbourhood councils have been running their offices in tents for the last two weeks as a protest because the local government department has neither provided them offices nor rent to hire private buildings for the purpose.

Though the local government department has asked the village and neighbourhood council nazims to take private buildings for offices on rent to be paid by the department, the nazims say funds for payment of rent for last seven months have not yet been released, forcing them to pay the same from their own pockets.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2015