LAHORE, Nov 23: Local Government Minister Brig Hamid Saeed Akhtar (retired) said the new local councils system would become fully functional after June 30, 2002, when the period set for transition from old to new system ends.

Talking to Dawn, he said “we have done a fairly commendable job by framing the rules of business in just three months. In the past the task had been completed in six to seven years.”

The new system, he said, would not fail. Doubts were being created about it by the vested interests who had been opposing it from day one. He alleged that the press was being “more than a party” to the issue.

“We have done what people had been demanding for the last 54 years. Any effort to roll it back will backfire,” he said.

He said there was no reality in the reports that working of the new system was being hampered on account of lack of rules.

He said all the laws concerning the local councils had been included in the Local Bodies Ordinance, 2001. The rules of business, he said, had been printed and distributed separately.

The fault, he said, lay with the Nazims and councillors who were complaining without studying the ordinance. “We shall force the (elected) people to study these laws.”

He admitted that the union councils had been unable to function, especially in Lahore. The concept, he said, was new in Lahore which was a very “compact district”. Even the civic services transferred to tehsil councils in other districts were being handled here at district level.

“Actually, the people are not showing any initiative. They want everything placed before them in the final form,” he said. He said the union councils would become fully functional within the next few months, possibly following a push-start.

He said the police were under Nazims concerned for day to day functions. Only the recruitment, posting and transfer of police officials and writing their annual confidential reports would remain with their line superiors.

However, he said, the Nazims were not satisfied with the wording of the Ordinance which provided that the police would keep the Nazim “generally informed” on law and order situation. The words, he said, had since been replaced with “totally informed.”

On the demand of district Nazims for representation in Zakat committees, the minister said the Zakat system would not be politicized. However, he said, the Nazims had been allowed to refer names of the deserving to the Zakat bodies.

About the lack of a service structure for the employees of the departments devolved to district level and anomalies in their postings, the minister said there were two ways to solve the problem. The government could either accommodate everybody irrespective of who qualified for the job or send them packing.