PESHAWAR, Sept 11: Various civil society organisations on Wednesday demanded local government elections on party basis at all levels in the province except for village councils.

They also urged the provincial government to hold local body elections in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The demands were made during a joint news conference here at Peshawar Press Club.

Representative of the Umar Asghar Khan Foundation Rashida Dohad urged the government to share the draft amended local body bill with the relevant stakeholders to address their concerns before its tabling in the provincial assembly.

She said the government should take the civil society organisations and other stakeholders before tabling the draft bill in the assembly so that to remove the loopholes and make it useful for the people of the province.

Ms Rashida demanded of the government to incorporate all recommendations and proposals given by the social society organisations in the draft local government bill, which would make the system more effective and address the issues of the people on their doorstep.

Accompanied by Mukhtar Bacha of Amn Tehreek, Maryam Bibi of Khwendo Kor, Professor Sarfraz of Area Study Centre at Peshawar University and trade unionist Gul Rehman, she said the proposals had been drafted during four roundtable meetings held in different divisions of the province.

The representative of the Umar Asghar Khan Foundation said in this connection, her organisation had arranged consultative conferences in Peshawar, Hazara, Malakand, and DI Khan to get input and proposals from the people of different walks of life about the provincial government’s plan and strategy about the local body elections in the province.

She said mostly participations at series of the consultative meetings had suggested that the local body elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata be held on party basis.

Ms Rashida said it was also proposed to allocate 33 per cent seats quota for women, 10 per cent for youth, five percent each for labourers, farmers and minorities.

“There is a need for establishing the directorate of election for local bodies polls at all levels, while the elections should be held on party basis at district, tehsil and provincial levels except for village councils, and the law against floor crossing should be implemented in letter and spirit,” she said.

The representative of the Umar Asghar Khan Foundation said there should be autonomous three-categories at village, tehsil, and district levels, wherein all required administrative setup and support should be ensured.

She said to keep transparency and fairness in distribution of funds, a provincial finance commission should be constituted on the pattern of National Finance Commission, while the establishment of District Finance Commission and Implementation would be the responsibility of elected members of the provincial assembly and their monitoring.

Ms Rashida suggested that the involvement of members of provincial assembly in district level development projects be restricted, while two members from ruling and opposition be nominated for the district finance commission.

She said the district ombudsmen system should be strengthened to address weakness and irritants in the local government system.

The representative of the Umar Asghar Khan Foundation said a local government commission headed by the minister of local government needed to be established to resolve financial matters of local bodies.

She said the members of parliament should focus on legislation and all other matters relating to development, health, education and cleanliness should be supervised by the local body representatives.