Changes to LGA likely as anomalies impeding financial operation of TMAs

PESHAWAR: As anomalies in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act continued to impede the transfer of funds to the Tehsil Municipal Committees (TMAs), Senior Minister Inayatullah Khan on Friday formed a committee to overcome legal hitches to ensure smooth financial functioning of the TMAs in the province.
The committee was formed on the advice of Accountant General (AG) Shehzada Tamoor Khisro, who asked the provincial government to take stopgap measure to ensure smooth accounts operation of the TMAs.
Chairing a meeting at his office, the senior minister holding portfolio of the Local Government, Elections and Rural Development expressed annoyance over the lacuna hampering the financial functioning of the TMAs despite passage of six months after the local government elections in the province.
An official at the Civil Secretariat privy to the meeting told The News that the senior minister reprimanded one of the former secretaries of the Local Government Department who had drafted the LGA 2013 without addressing the issue of accounts operation for the TMAs in the law. However, the minister expressed the confidence that the incumbent secretary Syed Jamaluddin would resolve the issue.
The meeting was attended by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Accountant General, Secretary LGE&RDD, Deputy Accountant General (DAG), Unab Gul, special secretary Finance, Kamran Rehman, Director General Local Government, Adil Siddique and secretary Local Council Board, Syed Zafar Ali Shah.
The official said it discussed the issue of accounts operation by the TMAs after the closure of the Account-IV and change of nomenclature of the Chief Municipal Officers (CMOs) to the Tehsil Municipal Officers (TMOs). He said Personnel Ledger Accounts (PLAs) were basically used by CMOs to maintain the entries of cash (cheque or e-payment) deposit and payment of duty from this amount throughout the year by CMOs. But after the change of CMOs position as TMOs, there arose an anomaly impeding the overall financial operation of the TMAs in the province.
The official said the TMOs had not been operating accounts of even lawful taxes of the TMAs such as toll taxes and octroi.It has brought the operation of the TMAs to a virtual standstill even after six months of the local government elections that were held on May 30 in the province, the official said. The AG advised the provincial government to forthwith go for relevant amendments to the LGA 2013 to facilitate the account operation and movement of funds by the TMAs.
They unanimously agreed to opening of the PLAs for newly created TMAs and change of the PLAs from Municipal Committee to Tehsil Municipal Administration and from CMOs to TMOs as interim relief up to June 30, 2016.
The committee constituted at the meeting would be headed by Secretary Local government, while, deputy accountant general, secretary Local Councils Board, Director Local Fund Audit (LFA), Gul Naib Khan, deputy secretary Finance, Hameedur Rahman, and deputy secretary-IV (LCB), Barkatullah would be its members.