RAWALPINDI, Jan 29: The district council on Saturday vowed to oppose appointment of administrators to run local bodies prior to the elections later this year.

Members speaking at the council's session expressed the fear that the government might appoint administrators to replace nazims before announcing elections.

They vowed to resist such a move. "We may launch a movement to stop the government from appointing administrators," said Mr Manzoor Mughal.

The members saw in the move a conspiracy by the bureaucracy to find a role for itself in the new system run by elected representatives. These local governments, installed under devolution plan in 2001, had replaced the former system dominated by bureaucracy.

The members stressed that the transfer of charge should be from an elected nazim to elected nazim and not via an administrator.

It should be recalled that appointment of administrators in place of nazims is being debated by the National Reconstruction Bureau and provincial governments with the latter pressing for appointment of administrators and the former opposing it.

The session was dominated by disgruntled women councillors who said they were let down by the government which had promised them so much in return for joining politics.

Their major grievance was the honorarium issue. For most part of their tenure the women councillors had continued fighting for the honorarium, but could only end up with a promise that their successors might get it.

The women councillors mentioned the hardships with which they performed their duties and attended the council sessions in the absence of any source of earning.

They said the government's indifferent attitude had discouraged them from running for another term.