SWABI, Sept 9: Despite many announcements made over the past two weeks, the district Zakat department has not convened the much-awaited meeting for the constitution of Zakat committees.

"We fear that tempers will run higher this time than they were at the previous meeting. Now everybody has developed an interest in the process. The dilemma is that a non-political issue has been politicized," an official told Dawn on Tuesday, referring to the last meeting when local leaders of different political parties had quarrelled with union council nazims on the nomination of Zakat committee members and chairmen.

The Zakat department had called meetings in each union council to nominate a total of 392 male and 112 female members of Zakat committees in the 56 union councils of Swabi district on Aug 24.

The female members in all the union councils had returned unopposed but the nomination of male members and chairmen turned out to be an uphill task, forcing the department to postpone the appointment to another meeting the date for which had to be fixed later.

Sources said that before the nomination of members the ANP leadership had held two meetings and chalked out a strategy for the induction of their members into each union council.

The Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, the Swabi Qaumi Mahaz and Pakistan Muslim League had also held similar meetings. "Everybody wants to misappropriate Zakat funds. If it is not the aim then why are they fighting each other to get their representatives on the committees?" asked an official.