KARACHI, Nov 20: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan on Thursday said that devolution of powers to the grassroots level under the local government system is meant for the welfare of the masses and efforts should be made at every level to make it reflective of the real aspirations of the people.

He was presiding over a high-level meeting in which he was briefed on financial discipline in the local government. Provincial Advisor Local Government Waseem Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary Local Government Muhammad Saleem Khan, Secretary Finance Israr Malik, Director Sindh Local Government Commission and other concerned authorities attended the meeting.

The governor said financial discipline was significant at every level in local governments and added there was a need of consolidated and result-oriented strategy to strengthen the system and for provision of facilities to the people.

He said that more than two years had passed since the inception of the local government system and people had understood its laws, so now there should be no slackness or negligence in that regard.

The governor directed to adopt the system of accountability and audit at every level, and said the success of the local government system depended on check and balance.

The meeting was informed that the Sindh Local Government Commission had received 619 complaints pertaining to corruption, malpractice and indiscipline so far, and most of the complaints were lodged by members of district, taluka and union councils; out of those 235 complaints had been disposed of, 384 were under trial, accounts were frozen on 10, four were forwarded to Anti-corruption for instituting cases and one complaint had been sent to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). It was said that 286 complaints had been received from Karachi, 12 from Thatta, 33 from Mirpurkhas, 14 from Badin, 17 from Sanghar, 25 from Noshehro Feroze, 10 from Tharparkar, 26 from Sukkur, 20 from Larkana, seven from Ghotki, 13 from Shikarpur, 12 from Jacobabad, 58 from Hyderabad, 23 from Nawabshah, 27 from Dadu and 36 from Khairpur.—PPI