PESHAWAR: Provincial Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan on Monday observed that the PML-N central government was the party of feudal lords who were not ready to devolve powers to the grassroots in Punjab.

Speaking at a press conference, the minister said the PML-N had no justification to criticise the local government system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it had failed to conduct elections of mayor and deputy mayor, chairman and deputy chairman of the municipal committees in the Punjab province. Keeping in view the non-implementation of local governments in Punjab, he said MNA Danial Aziz, as being the head of Local Council Association, should not raise the issue of local governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The minister claimed that KP was the only province which had devolved powers to the grassroots in true sense because the local bodies were set to use 30 per cent of development funds.

Inayatullah Khan maintained that KP had devolved political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of local governments in light of the article 140 of the constitution.

Similarly, he said the local governments had also conducted transparent delimitation of local councils across the province prior to local bodies polls in 2015. He said the delimitation had also been appreciated and endorsed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

He said the provincial government had taken sufficient steps for improving the local bodies, and asked Danyal Aziz to mind his own business.

The minister said efforts were afoot for introducing amendments to the Local Government Act, 2013 and rules of business to remove certain flaws on which the nazims had reservations.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2016