MANSEHRA: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Ghulam Ali on Wednesday said he was going to promulgate an ordinance to restore the tehsil, village and neighbourhood councils suspended by the Election Commission of Pakistan until after the upcoming provincial assembly elections.

Addressing a gathering of local body representatives and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl workers in Battal area here, the governor said the ordinance would also do away with the amendments made by the last Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government to the LG Act.

“I have taken the caretaker chief minister and LG and law ministers into confidence about the ordinance, which has been drafted and will be promulgated within days,” he said.

Mr Ali said after the ordinance was issued, Rs35 billion funds earmarked under the National Financial Award for local governments would be released to tehsil, village and neighbourhood councils across the province.

He said as the provincial assembly stood dissolved and most constituencies had no representation in the National Assembly due to the resignations of MNAs, the local bodies – the institutions of grassroots democracy – were the only forum for the effective resolution of people’s problems.

The governor said he had the “complete” support of the caretaker government for empowering local bodies.

He said he had served as a councillor and a district nazim, while his son currently held the nazim’s office in Peshawar district, so he wanted to strengthen the LG system.

Mr Ali accused the last PTI government of “first weakening and then paralysing” grassroots democracy in the province through frequent amendments to the law.

RESIGNATION ACCEPTED: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Wednesday accepted the resignation of its divisional president,Malik Waheed,and made district president Malik Farooq his successor as an additional responsibility.

Malik Waheed had resigned as the PPP’s divisional president last month.

ANP STATEMENT FLAYED: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Tehreek-i-Sooba Hazara (Haqiqi) on Wednesday flayed the opposition of Awami National Party provincial president Aimal Wali Khan to the proposed creation of Hazara province.

The Tehreek-i-Sooba Hazara announced it would hold a rally against the ANP at the Khatm-i-Nabuwat Chowk here.

“The ANP [government] changed the name of our province from North-West Frontier Province to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but ironically, it is now creating hurdles to the creation of Hazara province,” Tehreek central convener Mushtaq Khan Swati told reporters here.

He said Mr Aimal had forgotten that the residents of Hazara region had sacrificed lives for a separate province, while the provincial assembly, too, passed resolutions for it twice.

PML-N central vice-president Sardar Mohammad Yusuf said the cause of Hazara province was supported by the people as well as the assembly, so the ANP shouldn’t be furious about it.

He told reporters that a resolution for Hazara province would be tabled in parliament soon.

“If the PML-N gets two-thirds majority [in the National Assembly], the government will declare Hazara a separate province,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2023