HYDERABAD, Dec 15: The National Reconstruction Bureau has assured office-bearers of district and provincial public safety commissions that the lacunas noticed in the Police Order, 2002, will be removed and proposals are being examined in this regard.

This was stated by Hyderabad District Public Safety Commission chairman Masood Pervez, who had attended a one-day workshop organized by the NRB in Islamabad the other day.

According to him, NRB chairman Danyal Aziz assured them that changes would be made in the system of the public safety commissions by January next year.

Chairpersons of Provincial Safety Commissions of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, NWFP and the National Safety Commission attended the workshop. From Sindh, chairpersons of Badin, Hyderabad, Larkana, Shikarpur and Thatta participated in the workshop which was also attended by two consultants of the NRB.

Mr Pervez, who is also the chairman of the Sindh Coordination Council of DPSCs, said there was a consensus among the commission’s office-bearers that they did not get logistic support from the civil administration and they were denied funds for running affairs of their safety bodies.

He said if the NRB could not run the bodies, these should be wound up to avoid embarrassment being caused to the office-bearers.

He said the people were blaming officials of the commissions for their poor performance whereas, he added, government functionaries were harping on the tune of “everything is good”.

The Hyderabad DPSC chief observed that Sindh was the worst- affected province when it came to the working of the public safety commissions as their office-bearers did not get any response despite its safety bodies were notified in August 2002.

He said in Punjab the DPSCs were provided a budget of Rs1.1 million in 2002 and Rs1.4 million this year but in Sindh no fund was provided to the commissions despite the fact that documents of Punjab’s public safety commissions regarding budgetary allocations were provided to the Sindh finance department.

He also complained that secretaries given by the district government were overworked as they looked after more than one office in their capacity as the executive district officer.

Mr Pervez maintained that the NRB chairman in his speech said that he was not aware that the officials of the commissions were working under these conditions.

The NRB chief said the feedback provided to the NRB by home departments was quite satisfactory.

However, he said proposals were being submitted to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to remove the lacunas in the system.