KP govt dragging its feet on LG rules of business

Islamabad
The much-touted local government system is yet to take off formally in Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa, as a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) team has traced a number of major lacunas in the proposed rules of business and also suggested amendments in the Local Government Act.
As long as the rules are not framed, the local bodies will not be able to function. The bureaucracy and the provincial government appear to be showing slackness on this count.
The PTI committee that had a review of the proposed rules of business has proposed that allocation of development funds to the members of the provincial assembly must be stopped, otherwise, the local government system would face a number of complications.
An interesting aspect of the matter is that the rules to be followed by the local governments in the province have been referred to PTI’s central leadership for review and approval though this has nothing to do with the party.
“Yes, the proposed rules are with a PTI committee for a review and hopefully, things will be sorted out shortly. It is true that these should have been framed earlier,” conceded the PTI information secretary Naeemul Haq, when this correspondent sought his comment on the matter.
Asked what exactly the PTI in Islamabad had to do with the rules of business pertaining to local government functioning, he said these had to be made in line with the party policy. The proposed rules grossly undermine free working of not only district governments but also down to the council level, as their freedom and autonomy has been retained by the provincial government.
“Obviously, it will take more time before the rules of business are made objection-free and handed over to the grass-root level dispensations,” conceded PTI sources while talking to The News. The rules, framed jointly by the provincial government as well as the bureaucracy, were dispatched to the PTI chairman Imran Khan, who referred them to a party committee, headed by Saifullah Khan Niazi, which had its last meeting on September 30. Among others, the meeting was attended by Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, Saifullah Khan Niazi, Atif Khan, Shah Farman and Fazal Khan.
The local government election was held in the province on May 30, followed by by-election in some districts in July. However, the provincial government failed to thrash out rules of business, on the basis of which the new system was to function.
The PTI committee noted that political independence of the local governments had hampered and the word ‘policy of the government’ needed to be defined and let it be a smaller sphere of political independence for local government but it needed to be clearly defined in the rules of business.
“We agreed that in no way the PTI government policy initiatives in the sectors of education and health should be compromised. In the absence of such definition, the new local government systems would lose their mandate which they got from the voters,” sources privy to the meeting said, referring to the committee’s observations. Similarly, it was pointed out that financial independence appeared to be completely lacking as the deputy commissioners had been made responsible to the provincial finance department in all matters of finance. The rules of business for the provincial finance commission were absent and the procedures for the separate allocations for the three tiers of local government system had not been laid down.
Khattak promised to have these rules laid down, but he insisted that financial independence as promised in the PTI manifesto was not possible at this particular stage due to the lack of discipline and capacity of the local government elected people. The committee also noted that administrative independence had also been severely compromised as the provincial government had not relinquished the authority of postings of district officers.
“We suggested that a panel of three or more officers for each post be presented to the Nazims who are then able to exercise limited independence. Otherwise, the responsibility of the services would lie with the LG system while in effect officers would be ruled by the provincial government,” the committee said.
To this, the chief minister openly insisted that after seeing the attitude of the local government elected people in the last 20 days, he did not want to share more power than this. On this, the panel suggested that the district officers were responsible to the nazims for the LG work and to the provincial governments for the provincial business. Likewise their ACR should be in two parts. Each part of the evaluation should be done separately by the provincial government and local government.
The committee contended that the system of patronage envisaged by late Ziaul Haq in the way of development funds to the assembly members should end now and the district development advisory committees set up in the absence of the LG system should now be ended.
“We pointed out that the zila and tehsil nazims have been made non-voting members on these development advisory committees of their very own LG areas! It would become difficult for the chairman to defend his promises on the media in this regard,” the committee said.
However, the chief minister insisted that although it would be difficult to defend but this was something he could not undo. Lastly, it was also pointed out that in the Local Government Act itself where in the absence of approval of the budget from the local councils, provincial government could prepare and approve a budget for that particular council.
The committee made it clear that this will completely undermined the authority of the LG councils. On this, the chief minister agreed and promised to bring about an amendment in the act in such a manner that in case of failure of budget approval, the relevant nazim should stand to lose the confidence of the house and a new nazim should be elected.