LARKANA, Feb 7: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said thata suitable person would be nominated in a couple of days to represent the interests of Sindin the National Finance Commission.

Talking to journalists at the residence of Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro, provincial secretary-general of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, here on Monday, the chief minister said that Sindh had no differences with the centre regarding the NFC award.

However, he said, there were differences with Punjab as it wanted distribution of the award on the basis of population, whereas Sindh and other provinces supported distribution on what he called multiple basis - backwardness, income generation as well as population.

About the Qambar incident, he said he had not yet received the inquiry report regarding the incident, and asserted that if the inquiry found any police officer involved in the incident, he would not be spared.

Talking about the continuing protest in the town, the chief minister claimed that the People's Party Parliamentarians was politicizing the incident.

The decision on making Shahdadkot a district was final, he stressed. Regarding the local bodies system, the chief minister said that Sindh had stood for replacing nazims with administrators at least 60 days prior to the elections; however, President General Pervez Musharraf had advocated induction of administrators 90 days prior to the polls to restrain nazims from influencing the elections. Nazims, exceeding their powers, had issued tenders worth millions of rupees, an action that had initiated inquiries, he claimed.

He said that in future, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and the Pakistan Muslim League would field their candidates jointly in local body elections in Qambar and Larkana.

To a question, he said that the government had begun primary work on the bifurcation of Hyderabad district, but hastened to say that the new district would not be created by hurting people's aspirations.

He said that the ban on recruitments would be lifted soon and educated youth would be provided jobs. He said that the people had never elected the leaders of Ponam, whose struggle revolved around seeking power, but they would not be allowed to realize their aspirations.

The law and order situation in the province was comparatively better, he claimed, adding that the government was quite capable of facing the challenge if it emerged anywhere in the province.

Declining to disclose the date of a 'massive' operation to be launched against outlaws, he claimed that the bandits would be flushed out.

The chief minister also held a meeting with Dr Soomro, in which Haji Altaf Hussain Unar and Masood Ahmed Khuhro were also present.

CLERKS: On the call of the local chapter of the All Pakistan Clerks' Association, clerks observed a pen-down strike in the government offices here on Monday in protest against transfer orders of their 10 colleagues.