New Provincial Finance Commission award notified

LAHORE: Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht has said new Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) award was notified while all stakeholders would be taken on board in consultation process of the PFC Award.

The minister while chairing the quarterly review meeting of the Chief Minister Special Monitoring Unit for Local Government and Community Development Department asked the secretary Local Government and Community Development Department to ensure eradication of corruption in the department at district levels by improving the human resource development.

Punjab Minister for Commerce and Trade Aslam Iqbal, Adviser to Chief Minister Dr Salman Shah, secretaries of finance, local government and community development and other departments concerned attended the meeting. Briefing the meeting, Secretary Local Government informed that the mayor would be the centre of power under new Local Government Act and horse-trading will not be possible. Under new Local Government Act, nine municipal corporations, 128 municipal committees, and 67 town committees would be established while Village Panchayt system would be introduced in rural areas.

Punjab Local Government Commission will be responsible for audit and transparency in the local government departments. He briefed the meeting about performance of the companies and authorities working under Local Government department. The minister instructed to end the bribery and reference would be discouraged in hiring and appointment of people and proper mechanism would be devised for the training of the local government elected representatives and administrative staff. The local government staff would be asked to ensure to file their returns like other government officials and declare their assts. He asked the department to submit the estimated expenditure for local government election to ensure timely election. He asked ensuring delimitation of the electoral constituency under government supervision. Later, the minister chaired the second meeting of Lahore Waste Management Company. The meeting discussed hiring the nine different contactors for nine towns of the city. The meeting was proposed ending door-to-door service of garbage collection and suggested designated allocating garbage collection points besides mechanised road sweeping. The minister reviewed the proposal of the Urban Unit of recycling of waste. He asked the finance department to evaluate the income and expenditures of all the proposals discussed in the meeting before making a final decision on it.