SWABI, Sept 8: The Rs45 million allocated for the Citizen Community Board (CCB) has not been utilized during the last three years either by the district government or tehsil municipal administration of Swabi and Chota Lahore.

Official sources told Dawn here on Wednesday that under the Local Bodies Ordinance 2000 the budget allocated for these bodies could not be diverted to some other projects.

The sources said that a sum of Rs20 million was lying with the district government, deposited in a bank under the head of CCB, since the introduction of the new local bodies system. No-one could withdraw this fund without the establishment of CCB and without its activities being outlined.

Similarly, the tehsil municipal administration of Swabi and Chota Lahore have Rs15 million and Rs10 million respectively under this head, the sources said. "We have not received a clear-cut instruction from the government about the utilization of this amount," said Muhammad Israr Yousafzai, acting naib-nazim of tehsil Swabi.

He added: "I knew about the whole process that there were no instructions from the government in this regard." The sources said the NGOs and union council nazims wanted to accelerate the process of CCB because the tenure of the incumbent district government and TMAs was to end soon.

If the fund was used by a future administration or nazims, the credit would go to them. The establishment of CCB would pave the way for the use of fund. The uphill task for the government is to bring the nazim and welfare bodies on a single board, the sources said.

The nazims of 56 union councils had held separate meetings to chalk out a strategy for acquiring the CCB fund but they knew little about how to acquire it and use it, the sources said. The nazims belonging to the Awami National Party and Swabi Independent Group (SIG) had also held their separate meetings and discussed the CCB fund.