LG reps in Chitral threaten protest if funds not released

CHITRAL: The local government representatives on Friday asked the government to release funds to the village and tehsil councils so that they could work for the uplift of the people at the grassroots level.

A large number of village and tehsil council chairmen attended a meeting where they made the demands. The local government representatives from Mastuj, Booni and other places in Upper Chitral district attended the meeting.

Tehsil Mastuj Chairman Sardar Hakim, Mir Jamshedduddin, Mohammad Irshad, Khwaja Khalil, Qazi Ehtesham, Sheikh Abdullah, Anwar Wali Khan, Ashfaq Afzal, Imran Ali and others were in attendance.

Speaking at the meeting, the elected representatives of the local bodies said that two years had passed since the election for the local governments were held but the government was yet to release funds to them, which was an insult to the public mandate.

They said it was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government that had conducted the local government election and the party was now ruling the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but the rulers were not issuing funds to the LG members.

The people of Upper Chitral would take to the streets and stage protest demonstrations if the government did not release the funds forthwith, they said. “More than 80 percent of the local government representatives, who had won the elections, belonged to the PTI, therefore, the government must heed their demand for the release of the funds,” said Sardar Hakim.