HYDERABAD, March 15: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has said the local government system needs to be improved to ensure efficient delivery to people and make the devolution system a success.

He was speaking as chief guest at a one-day workshop on “Social audit of governance and deliveries of public services,” organized by a group of researchers working for the Community Information on Epidemiological Techniques (CIET) in collaboration with the Sindh local government at a hotel here on Tuesday.

The nazim said lack of proper financial powers to union councils, taluka municipal administrations and district governments according to their job description, dual control of district and provincial governments over devolved departments, political and administrative interference in working of devolved departments and poor performance, especially in the education department, were the main issues affecting efficient deliveries under the local government system to people.

He said that at present TMAs were performing the job of union councils and district governments were doing the job of TMAs due to scarce resources and lack of financial powers. Similarly, he said, overlapping in official work due to dual control of district and provincial governments was the common problem of each devolved department. He said political and administrative interference was another reason for poor performance of the local government system.

However, he said that despite these anomalies, the system was playing an important role in social development. He said the system had not only empowered people to solve their basic problems at the grass-roots level but it was also a political and administrative nursery for future leadership.

Mr Jamil said officers and organizations working in the field could not examine or evaluate their deliveries on their own because of their heavy engagements and, as such, impartial NGOs and organizations could play a vital role to have a fair assessment of the present system to make it more successful.