PESHAWAR: The local government representatives, belonging to different union councils of Peshawar, have threatened to start agitation from February 3 if authorities fail to give powers and funds to them under Local Government Act, 2013.

Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Monday, a 25-member jirga including councillors and nazims, led by nazims Amanullah Khan and Malik Abid, said that initially local government law was appreciated by the people but amendments in the Act disappointed the elected representatives.

“We had contested elections with hope to get the powers mentioned in the Act and play our role in development of our respective areas but we could not materialise our dreams owing to flawed policies of the government,” the nazims said.

They said that they wanted devolution of powers in real sense. “We will block all main roads of Peshawar in case our demands are not accepted,” they said.

Threaten to block all main roads on Feb 3 if their demands not met

Referring to the relevant law, the nazims said that government was duty bound to transfer funds to the accounts of the elected representatives and give them powers of carrying out developmental works at their own but they were not empowered so far.

The representatives of the jirga said that they had been deprived of their powers which was violation of the rules of business of the Act and intolerable for them.

Saleem Khan, a nazim, said on the occasion that they were also deprived of utilisation of funds for the concerned village and neighbourhood councils as they were confined to just pavement of streets, installing of streetlights and laying of pipelines. The nazims were made subordinate of assistant director of local government with regard to utilisation of funds, he said, adding that it was violation of the rules of business.

He said that nazims had the authority to keep developmental funds in their official accounts but government was reluctant to transfer the same to them. The government officials were exercising the powers of nazims in that regard, he added.

Mr Khan said that elected representatives would not be held responsible to answer questions regarding poor services in the health and education sectors as they were not given powers to take steps to bring reforms in those departments.

The government, he said, should give salaries and other perks and privileges to the elected representatives as per the relevant law. He added that they were left with no other option except to launch protest for their legal rights.

Mr Khan said that they would start launch protest campaign from February 3, 2016 and the responsibility would rest with the government as they had already wasted time.

Another nazim Zubairuddin demanded of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan to take serious notice of the their demands and avoid confrontation with elected representatives.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2016