KOHAT, Aug 28: The NWFP government has restored financial powers of district coordination officers and tehsil municipal officers to ensure discipline in the spending of public money and also their authority to maintain law and order, credible sources said.
A senior official, while confirming that the government had issued two notifications, said that in the first notification the revenue department had been put under the direct control of DCOs, which was earlier answerable to the Board of Revenue.
In future the revenue department would submit all reports, details of revenue collection and spending to the respective DCO, he said, adding that DCOs had also been empowered to look after price control in addition to review police performance.
Under the new rules, DCOs would also write the annual confidential reports of district revenue officers and keep close liaison with the police. DPOs would submit annual performance report to DCOs instead of district nazims, said the notification (3/7 SO (LLO)/HD/2006) dated 17-08-2006.
DCOs would hold meetings with the respective DPOs on a monthly basis to review law and order situation and take measures to ensure security to the life and property of the people and curb social menaces.
In another major change, DCOs and the tehsil municipal officers had been granted powers to sign cheques for development or non-development projects.
Earlier, according to the Local Government Ordinance, dual signs that of tehsil nazim and TMO and district nazim and DCO were required on a cheque under a joint account.
The sources said that the measures had been taken after reports of corruption and misuse of authority by tehsil and district nazims in distribution of public funds on political basis.
The other main objective was to bring transparency in the spending of funds because the annual audit reports of the district governments had been constantly pointing to large scale misappropriations and embezzlements, the sources added.
The resident audit officer, town municipal administration, Kohat in his annual audit report pinpointed unlawful appointments, illegal remissions at a massive scale under political pressure in addition to improper maintenance of accounts and non-recovery of taxes and loans from staff and contractors.
The audit report said that despite repeated advice to the TMO, the district council and accounts branch to follow the prescribed local council rules of book keeping and make payments after approval from the competent authority and audit branch, no action had been taken so far, the sources said.
The audit branch had requested the higher authorities to look into the malpractice of the TMA staff and financial discrepancies as it had been unable to streamline the financial system despite efforts during the past three years.
In majority of the districts of the NWFP, tehsil and district nazims belonging to the federal ruling coalition had returned successful.
The provincial government feared that they were using funds for electioneering, which was affecting the performance of the district governments and weakening position of the MMA among the masses.
Senior officials commenting on the new orders termed them as part of the pre-poll preparations by the MMA government.