LG reps to stage sit-in outside CM’s House

NOWSHERA: The local government representatives, including tehsil, neighbourhood and village council chairmen in a meeting on Monday announced to stage a protest sit-in outside the Chief Minister’s House in Peshawar against the noon release of funds and making the LG system dysfunctional.

Besides others, Pabbi Tehsil Chairman Ghayur Khattak and Local Action Council Presidentand Mardan Mayor Himayatullah Mayar, Irshadullah, chairmen Syed Ali, Taimur Kamal, Arshad Shah, Issa Khan, Haji Nihar also attended the meeting.

The participants of the meeting held at the District Council Hall, Nowshera, announced that they would participate in the protest sit-in to be staged outside the Chief Minister’s House tomorrow.

Addressing the meeting, Himayatullah Mayar said even after two and a half years, the LG representatives could not get funds and powers to serve the people who had elected them.

“The founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf would claim devolving powers to the grassroots level but his party government in the province is deliberately weakening the local government system,” he said.

The provincial government should give rights to the LG representatives as problems of the people were multiplying with the passage of time.Other speakers said that the previous PTI government had made amendments to the Local Government Act 2019 and weakened the local government system by depriving the elected representatives of their powers.

They complained that more than two and a half years had passed but the elected local bodies had not yet received a single penny. The speakers said the local bodies were facing difficulties in running their administrative affairs that due to lack of funds.

“It is lamentable that the local government system has been deliberately weakened as the government is neither providing funds for development work nor giving the announced honorarium to the elected tehsil and village chairmen,” a chairman said.The provincial government, he said, should release funds and honorarium of the previous years so that the problems of the common man could be solved.