LAHORE, June 7: At their first meeting with Chief Secretary Javed Mahmood, the district coordination officers on Saturday expressed their ‘legal limitations’ in managing affairs in their districts and also complained that they had no powers to make the police obey their orders.

The chief secretary said he was all for devolution, but “we have to put in the missing regulatory mechanism in the system to make it successful.”

According to official sources, most DCOs said they were having problems in governance because of limitations mentioned in the Local Government Ordinance. A DCO said there were price magistrates, but they could not impose the government writ because they could not force the police to obey them.

Same was happening during the wheat procurement campaign because the DCOs had no legal powers to make the police pay heed to their instructions, he said.

Another DCO said wheat procurement was basically the job of the food department. “Asking a DCO to procure wheat amounts to duality of functions,” he pointed out.

Under the LGO, the DCOs could only assist the food department in the wheat procurement campaign. “If we are asked to supervise wheat procurement, its releases should also be made under us,” he said.

Responding to this complaint, the chief secretary admitted that faulty procurement was an indication that the food department was not properly functioning.

The chief secretary said he was in favour of the local government system with certain amendments to it when a DCO said it should be retained because it had mobilised community at the grassroots level. “It is true that the system has generated corruption, but it has also mobilised community,” the DCO told the chief secretary.

Mr Mahmood announced that he would now meet the DCOs at the former divisional level. Prior to meeting all DCOs in a defunct division, he said, he would personally visit their districts to assess on-ground realities. “I will start meetings very soon,” he said.

He asked the DCOs to send their EDOs (finance and planning) to a meeting being presided over by the provincial finance secretary tomorrow (Monday) so that they could be given policy guidelines regarding the preparation of their respective budgets. “Any DCO having some special (related) problem can also attend the meeting,” he said.