ISLAMABAD, June 6: The National Assembly on Friday seemed to have run out of steam as a debate on local governments dragged on to the next week after dividing the house in three sections of those seeking a drastic reform, scrapping and continuation of President Pervez Musharraf’s controversial legacy.

But a fourth day of the debate during the current session on a motion from ruling coalition members on “increasing corruption in the district government system and its failure” brought more criticism of the president for allegedly misusing his so-called “essence of democracy” for self-perpetuation, with only flickers of defence from some of his loyalists now sitting on opposition benches.

There was no official word if the discussion will continue until the budget on Wednesday because no other pressing business was scheduled as the 68-day-old PPP-led government did not appear ready to act yet on a promised restoration of the deposed judges of superior courts through a parliamentary resolution before lawyers begin their “long march” to Islamabad from different places on Tuesday.

Proceedings on the issue so far have seen the coalition-leading Pakistan People’s Party pleading for reforming the local governments from village union councils to powerful district and city district governments through constitutional and legal amendments to better deal with local development and municipal affairs under the jurisdiction of provincial governments and to provide for party-based, instead of the party-less, elections.

But most speakers from the other main coalition ally, Pakistan Muslim League-N, have called for scrapping and replacing what it said was the ill-conceived brainchild of a military dictator.

However, members from the formerly ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) defended the system as a very useful empowerment of people at the local level but acknowledged need for removing defects.The day’s strongest criticism of the alleged abuse of the system, as well support for its enforcement after a “drastic overhaul”, came from PPP’s Nafisa Shah, a former nazim for Khairpur district, who said it was essentially a provincial subject and should be reformed in consultation with provinces.

“A local government system is imperative to resolve the day-to-day local problems,” she said, adding that “problems of drains and streets” could not be solved by members of the National Assembly or a provincial assembly, who have often complained of being left with very little to do with the development of their constituencies compared to more powerful tehsil and district nazims.

PML’s Atiya Inayatullah, a known Musharraf loyalist, said the president had sincerely given the system to empower people, never regarding the ordinance creating it as a final document, and that it could be amended to provide for improvements such as transferring of financial powers from the centre to provinces, giving a role in the system to MNAs and MPAs and paying stipends to directly elected women councillors.

Both she and MQM’s Fauzia Ejaz Khan regretted what they saw as criticism of the system based on opposition to the president but were not so ardent as to invite a backlash like the one on Tuesday when his defence by two other PML members during a debate on a US missile strike in the tribal area last month was greeted with jeers and “go Musharaf go” slogans.

PIA HEALTH: Earlier, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told the house, in response to a call-attention notice from five ruling coalition members, that the government would unveil in a couple of months a plan to make the loss-making Pakistan International Airlines profitable and said he hoped the national flag-carrier would be out of the red by 2010.

In response to a question, he said the airline would consider slashing executive staff at its offices abroad and review the commission paid to travel agents to conform to rates paid by foreign airlines.