RAWALPINDI: Punjab Minister for Law and Local Government Raja Mohammad Basharat on Sunday said the PTI-led government would introduce a new local government system soon.
“We are working to replace the old local government system with a new one so that the citizens could get civic facilities at their doorsteps,” he said while speaking at a function at Chungi No 22 here.
The minister said the government had to spend some months to put things in order as the previous government had left the accounts empty.
He said the previous government wasted funds on unnecessary projects.
“People will see the difference in coming days as the PTI government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar is working hard to take the country out of the financial crisis.”
Says changing system is aimed at ensuring provision of civic facilities to citizens at their doorsteps
The minister said a cleanliness campaign would be launched in the province from March 4 under the Clean and Green Pakistan programme.
“The basic aim of the drive is to provide a clean and healthy environment to the citizens,” he said.
“The provincial government is considering expanding the services of the Rawalpindi Waste Management Company (RWMC) to the cantonment areas to ensure cleanliness in the city as well as the cantonments,” he said.
The government would spend funds on education, health and water as these are the basic needs of the citizens both in rural and urban areas, he maintained.
Meanwhile, sources in the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) told Dawn that there was no plan to hand over the sanitation department to the waste management company due to high rates of the company to lift garbage.
A senior official said talks held in the past between the company and the Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonment boards had failed as the RWMC wanted to fix charges on its own.
“If the provincial government provides funds to the RWMC to lift garbage from the cantonments, the cantonment authorities would have no objection,” the official said.
The cantonment boards were facing shortage of funds as there is no direct funding for the civic bodies. They meet their expenditures through fees and taxes on different services, he said.
The cantonment boards have their own sanitation departments but are looking for a piece of land to set up landfill sites as the district administration does not allow dumping of garbage from cantonment areas at Loser landfill site, the official said.
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