LAHORE, June 2: The Punjab government is least interested in activating the Local Government Commission as neither the body is being completed nor is it being provided basic infrastructure.
An important tool created under the devolution plan, the commission’s job is to inspect and monitor working of local bodies, audit their accounts and arbitrate in case of a dispute between upper and lower tiers of the government.
The forum that was bound to meet once a month has been able to hold just seven meetings since its inception on Dec 13, 2001, laments Naveed Chaudhry, the only opposition member in the body.
The Punjab government had to provide secretariat support and complete infrastructure of the commission by Dec 31, 2005, as laid down in the amended local government ordinance but it did not do anything till to date. Nor was any allocation made for it in the last budget.
“I’m at a loss to understand why the provincial government is hindering the working of the commission in which it has absolute majority,” Mr Chaudhry told a press conference here on Friday.
Funds worth millions of rupees are being wasted on payment of honorarium, maintenance of a four-room “office” and vehicles to three members so far nominated to the body but it is not being made functional, he regretted.
The five-member body is headed by the local body minister, while leader of the house and the opposition leader nominate one member each. Two members are technocrats who are also nominated by the government. The local bodies department secretary acts as its secretary.
Billions of rupees are being embezzled by nazims and officials of local councils but there is no staff for auditing their accounts, Chaudhry said.
Quoting an example, he said the former Sargodha tehsil nazim had deposited Rs60 million official funds with his personal bank account and got a commercial loan against the amount. The PML-Q latter awarded the man a ticket for contesting a provincial assembly seat.
The commission had inspected 17 districts, including Faisalabad, Sheikhupura, Multan, Sahiwal, Sargodha, and Jhelum, in 2003 and found that most of nazims were based in Lahore and people of their districts waited outside their offices daily to get their problems solved, he said, adding irregularities were also found in various wings of the councils.
The report was sent to the provincial government for a special audit of these districts but the member, Salman Qureshi, who had authored the report was forced to withdraw the same, he alleged.
He said that the local government directorate instead of the commission was monitoring the councils in violation of the law for the director-general was a close relative of a bigwig in the present set-up.
Under the law all the district councils are bound to send their resolutions to the commission but not a single resolution has ever been made available to the commission, he said.
All districts also could not yet institute consultative council, village and neighbourhood council, code of conduct committee and arbitration council, he said.
Various district governments, including of Lahore, have levied taxes which they are not authorised to impose but for lack of infrastructure support the commission is unable to take any action against them, he said.