PESHAWAR, Dec 27: The NWFP Assembly on Friday referred an adjournment motion, on the restructuring and reforming of the present local bodies system, to the relevant committee to seek suggestions for improvement in the system.
Speaker Bakht Jahan Khan allowed Abdul Akbar Khan of the PPP to table the adjournment motion in the house and initiate a debate on the issue.
He said every dictator, who came into power, had introduced a complicated system to prolong his dictatorship.
Tracing the history, he said Gen Ayub Khan had introduced the Basic Democracy system to rule the country for 10 years. Later on, Gen Ziaul Haq tampered with the democratic traditions and brought apolitical class into the local bodies forums to stay in power.
He said the present system was silent over the functions and powers of the councillors and only Nazim was enjoying all powers.
He showed a four-page budget document of a district council in the house, which contained no breakdown of funds allocations.
Mr Khan said the present system was full of contradictions which needed to be removed forthwith, otherwise this system would create further legal and practical complications.
Anwar Kamal Khan of the PML-N said the “law-breakers” had given them a system which had failed to work smoothly. This house, and parliament, the sole supreme institution, had the right to do away with this system, he added.
He termed the introduction of the present local bodies system an “encroachment” upon the provincial autonomy. The local bodies and the police were the provincial subjects, and the federal government or any individual had not authority to make surgery into them, he added.
An independent MPA, Shahzada Gustasip Khan, and PML-Q’s Mushtaq Ghani, supported the local bodies system and described it as a step ahead towards the local self-government in Pakistan.
Provincial minister for local government, Sardar Idrees, told the mover that the government also wanted to remove the “imbalances” from the system. He asked the mover not to oppose the entire system.
The speaker, however, referred the motion to the relevant house committee to discuss it.
Abdul Akbar tabled a second adjournment motion on the misuse of the Zakat funds by the chairmen of Zakat councils and asked the house to initiate a debate on it.
Mushtaq Ghan opposed the Zakat system and said it had failed to bring any change in the lives of the poor. Instead, it had multiplied the strength of the beggars.
Provincial minister Hashmat Khan said the government would take action against corrupt people who had misused the funds. The audit would be conducted to ascertain the real position, he said.
The mover didn’t press his motion.
Bashir Ahmed Bilour of the Awami National Party (ANP) tabled an adjournment motion about the closure of flour mills in the province and urged the government to take up the import of wheat issue with the Punjab government.
The food minister explained the position, after which the mover didn’t press his motion.