National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) chairman Daniyal Aziz on Monday categorically said there was no possibility of rolling hack the local government system.
"These are just rumours and will fade away with the passage of time. You will see the system very much there and working," he said while addressing the one-day workshop for district Nazims' orientation on formation of Citizen Community Boards (COBs).
The national orientation workshop on the 'Alliance for Community Empowerment' was organised by the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and Nazims from five districts across the country attended the workshop.
Daniyal rejected press reports based on winding up of this system and said: "I assure you of the continuation of this system as it ended decades old colonial system."
He said the constitution also provides protection to this masses welfare-oriented system that had developed a sense of ownership amongst people at the grassroots level.
Daniyal said during the recent consultative process with the provinces, the NRB noticed an apparent change in the society in terms of development and nobody opposed this system.
However, he said, certain problems about the system were pointed out, but this is on record that they accepted 90 percent of our proposals for resolution of these problems.
The NRB chairman said new the Police Order will be promulgated soon as on completion of the discussion process with provinces, necessary amendments in this order had already been made.
"Now we are reviewing proposals of the district governments and as soon as this process completes, the Police Order would be in place," he added.
Defending the system, Daniyal said, social audit of the functioning of district government and the baseline surveys conducted during last three years recorded ample improvement in service delivery.
He said service delivery indicators showed an upward trend under the district governments and this system will work more effectively when Citizen Community Boards are in place.
Daniyal Aziz said this is in our notice that in one province Tehsil Municipal Authority's (TMA) were not allowed to work freely, but in other areas the response to this system was tremendous.
Number of CCBs went up to 8881 from 4500 within last four months with 222,025 citizens becoming member of these boards, Daniyal said.
He called for eliminating "syndicate corruption" amongst the professionals working at the district and tehsil level.
NCHD chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf said development at grassroots level lagged behind due to poor implementation of development projects.
"The biggest reason for failure of these projects was lack of masses participation and their deprivation from decision making," Dr Naseem said.
He said the new local government system provided people the decision-making power and sense of ownership.
"We have now a national policy and witnessed that district governments played effective role for the uplift keeping in view the masses problems," he said.
He said this initiative of the NCHD is aimed at strengthening district governments by setting up CCBs in each district.
He said fears of Nazims and DCOs were genuine and "for me these are Nazims who can better cope with this situation."
The NCHD chairman said NGOs must play role in making the CCBs technically strong and if possible provide them seed money as well.
Zulfiqar Ahmed, NCHD, delivered welcome address while Brigadier Masood Balam (Retd), CEO, DTCE, Roomi S. Hayat, director, NRBP, and Raft Tarar, NCHD, highlighted the importance of CCBs and role of Nazims in setting up these bodies.
Dera Ghazi Khan District Nazim Sardar Jamal Leghari said the government line departments were tempting the CCBs to involve in corruption through over-invoicing of projects.
He said, if so happens, the district Nazim must not be held responsible for this embezzlement but the signatory of the project and the signatory must be issued non-bailable arrest warrant.
Jamal complained that the provincial government was not consulting the district Nazim in transfer of officials and he was not even told about the transfer of 42 AEOs in his district.
Chakwal DCO Azam Saleem endorsed Jamal Leghari's viewpoint and said the role of engineer must be defined to avoid over-estimation of projects.
He said the projects must be invoiced on the basis of market rate and the union council be strengthened to finance the CCBs projects.
D.G. Khan DCO Shaukat Ranjha said the system was suffering shortcomings due to political divides and it must he ensured that funds are released to CCBs without any bias.
Chakwal district Nazim Sardar Ghulam Abbas said there is space for improvement in the CCBs system that can further discourage the corruption trends.
He suggested empowering the district governments to provide grant in aid to CCBs and ensure an enhanced role of masses to make the system more vibrant.
Ghulam Abbas said often the project engineer refuse to work as he is not paid commission under the CCBs projects and called for maximising the role of such commission seeking officials.
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