Mansehra district govt comes under fire

MANSEHRA: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led district government came under fire from the members, including own councillors, on Monday. 

“This district government has come into existence to address core issues faced by people but it has miserably failed to implement 219 resolutions adopted by the council for the last two years because of its inability to run day-to-day affairs,” Abdul Aziz, the district member of PML-N, told the council.

The council, which met with its convener Ghulam Murtaza Tanoli in the chair, raised the issues of law and order, shrinking space in graveyards and water shortage that often prompted people to take to the streets.

Ihtisham Ali, the district member of Jamaat-e-Islami, while speaking at the council, denounced the role of the police in the district.“We should admit that there is no change in the police system in the province, particularly in Mansehra, as claimed by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government because the cases of theft and torture by the police are on the rise,” he said.

He believed that first information reports were being lodged on favouritism and criminals were roaming freely.Aslam Khan Baffa, a councillor from the PTI, said that tenders of hundreds of development schemes had been completed but work was not being executed by contractors.

“The contractors, despite receiving work orders and money, are hesitant to start work on the schemes. All this is happening because of the government’s failure to take strict legal action against them,” he said.

Aslam Baffa said that heads of devolved departments were not attending sessions but the district government couldn’t initiate legal proceedings against them.Malik Farooq from the PPP, said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had transferred an amount of Rs200 million for acquisition of land for a graveyard in the district almost one year ago but people were facing dilemma as there was no space in graveyards to bury the dead bodies.

Sardar Said Ghulam, the district nazim, told the council that both the treasury and opposition benches should extend support to him in addressing core issues faced by people in the district.