MARDAN: The mayor of Mardan, Himayatullah Mayar, has written a letter to the chief justice of Peshawar High Court (PHC), asking him to help solve the issue of the non-release of funds to the representatives of the local governments. Himayatullah Maya stated in the letter that it had been two years since the holding of the local government elections, however, the counsellors and other LG representatives were yet to receive fund to execute uplift work. The mayor said that the previous government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf amended the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Amendment Act 2019 to curtail the powers of the local government representatives. He pointed out that the amendment to the Act also deprived the LG reps of funds. He said the district tier was also abolished from the local government system by introducing tehsil governments. He said administrative and financial powers of nine departments and offices of social services had been transferred to the tehsil governments. However, he said that practically not a single office had been established at the tehsil level.
The mayor stated that in practice, the deputy commissioner and district officers were using the administrative and financial powers of the transferred departments. He stated that the elected LG representatives also filed writ petitions in the Peshawar High Court besides staging protests to press the government for acceptance of their demands. The mayor requested the court to help the local government representatives to get funds.