HARIPUR, Oct 25: The opposition members of Haripur district assembly have rejected the district budget and termed it ‘a pack of flaws’.

The District Nazim Dr Raja Aamir Zaman has presented a Rs402 million revised budget for 2001/2 with 50 per cent allocations out of total outlay, for developmental schemes for 44 ucs of the district. It was passed amidst hooliganism and walkout by the opposition with a required majority of 37 members out of 62, the other day.

Addressing a news conference, Ahmad Sultan Khan advocate, who staged a walkout with 22 other opposition members, said that the budget was imbalance and fraught with numerous flaws pertaining to the district’s total expected income and expenditures projected by the district government.

Accompanied by the Nazims of various union councils, including Aslam Khan Bagra of PPP, Akhtar Nawaz Khan of ANP, Saleem Khan, Irshad Khan, he pointed out that the district government had shown most of the income heads which were, in fact, in the legal jurisdiction of TMA.

But, the District Nazim, in a bid to show the income of district high inserted a sum of Rs4.42 million expected to be received from weekly cattle fare market and Rs9.2 million to be received from tax on immovable property, in its income heads, he said.

He was of the view that under the Local Government Ordinance 2000 both of these heads fall in the jurisdiction of TMA rather than district. He added that though on the one hand the District Nazim has tried his best to show the budget as development oriented, he has earmarked a huge amount under the heads of ‘Others, Miscellaneous and Contingencies.’

He also criticized him for not providing details of an expenditures of Rs0.7 millions, incurred between July 1 and Sept 30 2001.

He accused the local bureaucracy for preparing a budget, which had several contradictions and was meant to bring the TMA and district administration in conflict. He also lambasted at the behaviour of the speaker and called it unparliamentary and rude towards th members who wanted to raise objections on certain illegalities committed by the speaker.

He also attributed the walkout by the opposition to the discussion on the budget document before making bylaws for conducting the session.

Aslam Khan Bagra, Saleem Khan, Akhtar Nawaz Khan and Ms Farzana Rauf also spoke to the news conference.