Next polls on party basis: Local bodies dissolved in NWFP
By Mohammad Ashfaq
PESHAWAR: The NWFP government on Saturday dissolved the local bodies in the province and notified appointing administrators to replace nazims.
“From today onwards, all nazims, naib nazims and councillors cease to hold their respective offices,” NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour said during a press conference here on Saturday.
Mr Bilour, who also holds local government and rural development portfolio, announced that fresh elections would be held on party-basis within the next six months. Three notifications had been issued by the provincial government regarding dissolution of local governments and handing over the local bodies to administrators.
The minister said that in place of the nazims, town municipal officers and tehsil municipal officers of towns and tehsil municipal administrations in all districts of the province would perform the duties of defunct town nazims and tehsil nazims, in addition to their own duties with immediate effect.After dissolution of district councils, tehsil councils, town councils and union councils, he said, district coordination officers (DCOs) would perform duties of administrators in place of defunct district nazims in their respective districts, in addition to their own duties.
Similarly, assistant coordination officers (ACOs), town officers (TOs) and deputy district officers (DDOs) would perform duties of administrators in place of defunct union council nazims in the respective union councils. They had been authorised to verify different documents of the people.
Answering to a query about challenging the amended law in the Peshawar High Court by the Local Council Association, Mr Bilour said that the provincial government would accept the court decision in letter and spirit.
He appreciated the role of the nazims who served the people of their respective areas for the last four years. The local bodies system, he said, was vital for resolving basic problems of the masses at grassroots level.
The provincial government was not interested in the local bodies’ dissolution but fresh elections after completion of the tenure was a constitutional requirement.
Whenever military dictators toppled elected governments, he said, they opted for conducting local bodies’ polls or referendums to get ‘support’ of the masses. However, successive elected governments in the past rejected the system as remnants of dictators. But the incumbent government would conduct elections of the local bodies.
The tenure of the local bodies had completed on Dec, 2009 but they couldn’t be dissolved earlier as the provincial government was busy in amending the Local Governments Ordinance 2001, he said.While talking about transparency in the new setup, Mr Bilour said that the masses would keep check on the administrators and pledged that the government would take punitive action against the newly appointed officers on complaints of the masses.
It is worth mentioning that the bureaucracy was in favour of appointing officers from the provincial and central services groups as administrators to replace the nazims but the ANP-led provincial government rejected the idea. Some observers say that the provincial government can easily influence low-ranking officers appointed as administrators of towns and tehsils.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/21/2010
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