NOWSHERA, Jan 23: Speakers at a training workshop here on Thursday said the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) would be responsible for failure of the local government system as it had failed to remove inherent flaws in the system.

The workshop was jointly organized by the provincial government and Essential Institutionalized Reforms Operational Programme (EIROP) with the cooperation of UNDP and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The training workshops would be held in all the 24 districts of the province to point out flaws in the Local Government Ordinance and highlight better working relationship between the district governments and the provincial government, and provincial autonomy.

District Nazim and convener Pervez Khattak said that the provincial government's policies had obstructed the functioning of district governments and usurped its powers.

He said that the MMA government had handed all the powers which ought to have been given to the district governments to the bureaucracy and violated the rules and regulations. The MMA government had put at stake everything for the sake of powers.

The MMA government's policies had alienated the local government representatives and created unrest among them as it had stopped implementation of the LGO, he added.

Nowshera DCO Laiqur Rehman, who presided over the first session, said that there were many inherent flaws in the local government system. The local government system which was a provincial subject was against the provincial autonomy, he said, adding that the federal government had also failed to ensure that the departments at the district level were handed over to the local governments.

Other speakers said that difficulties facing the public had multiplied with the ending of the magistrates' system.