LAHORE, June 2: National Reconstruction Bureau Chairman Daniyal Aziz has said that caretakers will replace nazims at all levels of the district governments 60 days before the forthcoming local bodies elections in accordance with the demand of the provincial governments.

Answering questions after his address at the concluding session of the two-day workshop on Pakistan’s Devolution Reforms at the Lahore University of Management Sciences here on Thursday evening, the NRB chairman said the caretakers would conduct only routine business and have no magisterial powers or authority to sanction development schemes or order transfer of employees.

He said the Local Government Ordinance was being amended to give more powers to district governments and tehsil/town municipal administrations to collect taxes. The district coordination officers, tehsil/town municipal officers and all subordinate local government service employees would be considered district government and TMA employees and subject to their administrative control.

He said 60 per cent of the devolution plan had been implemented but the district ombudsmen had not been appointed to check the acts of maladministration. Not even a single letter had been written to the public service commission for the appointment of the ombudsmen by the districts. Quarterly progress had not been published by the district governments in accordance with the legal provisions.

He said 60 to 80 per cent of tussle between the legislators and district governments was over the political economy of corruption based on collusion between bureaucratic and the political elite. He said 40 to 50 per cent of funds were misappropriated owing to the syndicated corruption of bureaucrats and politicians. Such corruption had become difficult under the local government system because the electoral college had become very big.

He said the Sindh government had taken away the power of TMAs to give technical sanction of projects costing Rs200,000 or above to curtail their financial autonomy. He said the democratic edifice of Pakistan was corrosive to institutional structure. Elections were contested with the intention of serving vested interests and not the interests of the electorate.

He said the devolution plan was aimed at developing the politics of ownership of institutions. Revenue collection had increased significantly at the TMA level without any increase in rates of taxes because of elimination of political corruption. There was also a marked decrease in transfers of the SHOs under the new system. Sensitive price index of 32 items, mainly foodstuffs, had also remained the lowest. Sargodha District Nazim Amjad Ali Noon said that lesser funds were allocated to districts after the devolution. Most of the corrupt officials were posted in districts deliberately. He said that the MPAs and MNAs obstructed release of funds to the district governments. He said the district governments should be given part of the revenue collected by them for the provincial governments.

Khairpur District Nazim Nafisa Shah said the provincial government created hurdles in smooth functioning of district governments. She got the DCO of her district transferred and gave adverse remarks in his ACR but he was posted in a larger district after transfer.