MANSEHRA: The district nazims of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will challenge the amendments to the Local Government Act 2013 and the subsequent rules of business for local bodies in the Peshawar High Court.

This was claimed by Mansehra district nazim Sardar Said Ghulam during a news conference here on Wednesday.

“During a recent meeting, we, the district nazims from across the province, decided to move the high court to seek the annulment of the amendments to the LG Act 2013 and business rules introduced by the provincial government in 2015,” Mansehra district nazim Sardar Said Ghulam told reporters here.

Flanked by deputy opposition leader in the district council Malik Naveed, the nazim said nazims of the province were united to thwart the provincial government’s policies against the LG system, which was introduced through the elections held on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Also threaten agitation over denial of rights

He said the government had never accepted local bodies and therefore, it had been creating hurdles to their smooth functioning.

Mr. Ghulam, who belongs to the PML-N, criticised both the federal and provincial governments for ignoring nazims during the visits of prime minster, governor and chief minister to their respective visits and warned such attitude won’t be tolerated.

“It is evident now that neither the federal nor provincial government is sincere about the LG system’s development. The nazims are disgraced during the visits of VVIPs,” he said.

The nazim said the PTI and PML-N governments had empowered bureaucracy to fail the elected LG members.

He said LG members across the province would observe a back day on the first anniversary of local bodies to protest the PTI government’s hostile policies.

On the occasion, deputy opposition leader in the district council Malik Naveed of the JUI-F complained that district governments in the province were denied development funds even a year after their elections.

“If the government doesn’t provide us with rights shown in the Local Government Act 2013, we will come onto the streets. We don’t want to be part of a disabled LG system,” he said.

FUNDS RELEASED: The district account office, Mansehra, formally gave the second tranche of developmental funds to the local government on Wednesday.

Manger of the National Bank of Pakistan’s Noguzi branch Mohammad Nadeem told reporters here that the district account office had transferred Rs180 million worth of second tranche of uplift funds to the central bank account of village and neighbourhood councils.

“We will now transfer that amount of money to the respective bank accounts of 194 village and neighbourhood councils in Mansehra in line with the instructions of the district account office,” he said.

Mr. Nadeem said the district account office had also transferred another amount of Rs60 million to those local bodies for payments of honorarium to nazims, naib nazim and councillors.

Safada village council nazim Basharat Ali said hundreds of micro-development schemes could be completed by the utilisation of Rs180 million funds and thus, increasing the people’s confidence in village and neighbourhood councils.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2016