PESHAWAR: The local government representatives have declared the recent amendments to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, unconstitutional and a violation of the basic spirit of local democracy and said they will challenge them in the Peshawar Higher Court and agitate against the usurping of the powers of local bodies.

Under the LG law, the government is bound to allocate 30 per cent of the provincial annual development funds for three tiers of the local government system.

However, the government got the law amended by the assembly recently to empower itself to use a certain part of those allocations.

Also seek PTI chief’s intervention for reversal of fresh amendments to local govt law

Through another amendment to the law, the government got the powers to distribute funds among village and neighbourhood councils on its discretion. Those funds were earlier distributed on the basis of population.

Mardan district nazim Himayatullah Mayar told Dawn that the government had usurped some of the financial powers of the local bodies by amending the LG law.

“The move is a violation of Article 140-A of the constitution,” he said.

Article 140-A states, “each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibilities and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.”

The nazim said the government had been treating the local governments unfairly since their formation two years ago.

He said in the last financial year, the government slashed the budget of the local bodies by 65 percent as of the Rs42 billion share in the budget, only Rs15 billion was released.

Mr Mayar said the government had already informed the local bodies about around 20 percent cut on their Rs33 billion funds for the current year.

He insisted like the provincial ADP, most of the local government funds would be utilised in Nowshera, the home district of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.

The nazim said after the abolition of the condition of distributing funds on the basis of population, funds would not be distributed fairly to village and neighbourhood councils.

Also, All District Nazims Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa general secretary Niaz Ahmad told Dawn that the nazims would launch a protest campaign against the recent amendments to the LG Act.

“We will convene a meeting of all district nazims to evolve a strategy of the launch of protest campaign,” he said.

Mr Niaz, who is also the district nazim of Shangla, claimed the government would provide more funds to the councils run by PTI leaders and meagre to those by the opposition parties.

When contacted, Local Council Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa general secretary Israrullah said the PTI government was reversing the LG system by amending the law governing it and usurping powers of the local bodies.

He demanded the government withdraw the amendments to the law in the best interest of the people saying after its powers were usurped, the LG system would be ineffective.

“We have appreciated the KP local government system at all forums compared those prevalent in other provinces,” he said.

Mr Israrullah however said with such amendments, the KP local bodies system would lose its spirit.

He demanded that PTI chief Imran Khan and JI chief Sirajul Haq ensure the reversal of the transfer of financial powers of local bodies to the government.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2017