LAHORE, Dec 29: Governor Salmaan Taseer has asked the Punjab chief secretary to furnish comments about complaints that district nazims were being denied funds from the Provincial Finance Commission, a senior official told Dawn.

Governor’s directives came after letters written by at least 19 district nazims a few days back asking for his help in removing obstacles in the disbursement of funds, the official said.

The district nazims include Maj Tahir Sadiq (retired) of Attock, Javed Ikhlas, Rawalpindi, Chaudhry Shafaat Husain, Gujrat, Abdul Rahman Kanju, Lodhran, Tariq Bashir Cheema, Bahawalpur, Sardar Ghulam Abbas, Chakwal, Chaudhry Farrukh Altaf, Jhelum, and Faisal Mukhtar of Multan.

Talking to Dawn, Advocate Fawad Chaudhry said the governor sought the comments as he, under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance (PLGO), was empowered to take stock of any situation as the chief executive of the province.

The nazims wrote to the governor because the provincial government, by holding back funds to district governments, had been trying to influence them.

Earlier, the Lahore High Court (LHC) had dealt with cases wherein nazims complained against the Punjab government for squeezing funds.

In one such case, the court directed the Punjab government to implement and process the budget approved by the Chakwal district council. The court observed that a provincial government had no powers to interfere in the financial matters of the local governments because an institution’s having budgetary powers reflected its sovereignty.

The court made these observations while setting aside the orders of the local government secretary under which he had approved the budget of Chakwal district council contrary to what had been approved by the council itself. Chakwal District Nazim Sardar Ghulam Abbas had petitioned the LHC against the provincial government.

The nazims, who wrote to the governor about their financial woes, had also petitioned the LHC, underlining various difficulties due to what they called provincial government’s discriminatory attitude. They challenged the appointment of commissioners established in the province through Punjab Land Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance, 2008.

The petitioners, through Fawad Chaudhry advocate, said the amendment was a violation of the Constitution and it had indirectly and impliedly repealed the PLGO. That afterwards in exercise of the powers under the said ordinance, the Punjab government had appointed commissioners in respective divisions, creating a new layer of bureaucracy, they said.

They said that district coordination officers (DCOs), who under the law were responsible to assist the smooth administration under the elected representatives, were made to act against the interest of the district government, and they were being instructed to cause hurdles in smooth functioning of the district government and frustrate development schemes initiated by the district government.

The provincial government also resorted to tactics of harassment and blackmailing and for this purpose initiated selective and biased audit of the district governments, they alleged.

They further said that as per media reports, the newly-appointed commissioners had taken over all the district and local government functions. The government of Punjab was issuing circulars and directives in the garb of impugned legislation that in essence and in practical terms had subverted the whole system of local government, they said.