This is the tragedy of our country that whenever democratic governments are established the local government system being dysfunctional to which even basic funds are not available to run it. On the other hand contraries like India, Iran and Turkey or in most of the region that system has been made very active. Thanks to which the civil system has developed a lot in these countries.
That has provided the best facilities to the citizens but the irony is that the provinces have been running away from the constitutional responsibility of local body elections in our country for the past decade. Sometimes Muslim League (N) suspends the local body system in Punjab, sometimes Tehreek-e-Insaf suspends it for two years using the excuse of Corona virus.
Therefore every tactics is used to sabotage this useful system. However whenever the government of a military dictator comes, work is carried out under this system temporarily and the citizens are kept busy for some time. But it was never taken up as a full-time system the disadvantage of which is that in backward provinces like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the problems of citizens and low-level employees of local bodies have increased.
The basic problems of the citizens are not being solved. Alternatively disputes over the salaries of most of the employees have become a daily routine. Last year the firing incident that was took place in the Peshawar Mayor’s office over delay in salaries and other differences is the result of these problems.
According to Mayor Peshawar Haji Zubair Ali, he has always taken care of the interests of the employees of the Capital Metropolitan and every platform has also raised his voice for them but the peaceful atmosphere of the Capital Metropolitan office was not digested by some elements who deliberately created such a situation. Then actions were taken which damaged the environment. Mayor Peshawar said that I was the mayor even during the PTI era and despite the extreme differences if there was any transfer posting, I would have been taken into confidence.
Those who have become the reagent to spoil the environment of the metropolitan city should look at their own necks. According to the Mayor Peshawar teachers union council secretaries were tortured in the past but we supported them.
When we can do so much for the outsiders why not do it for our own people? In other words the point of Mayor Peshawar’s speech is that the problems faced by the municipal employees are not new, they have been going on since the previous government.
It is true to say that the main reason for these problems is that many powers and funds were withdrawn from local bodies in the previous provincial government. The main reason being that it damaged the politics of former MPs and MNs’ constituencies.
That was happening however these representatives should have focused on legislation and planning instead of the development of streets and pipelines and the installation of transformers. If we look at the political history of the country the local government system has always been used as an ideology. Until it is taken up as a full time functional system these problems will remain.
Therefore it is necessary that the local government system should be made more active in the coming political governments, by doing this the vote bank of the political parties will be strengthened on the one hand the problems of the people and employees will be solved and on the other hand It is hoped that in the coming times where other democratic institutions will be strengthened the local government system will also improve. If the federal and provincial governments want to reduce their problems than the local bodies system should be implemented with all of its powers, a weak system cannot resolve the problems of masses.
