PESHAWAR: Hundreds of local government representatives,underthe banner of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Council Association, on Thursday staged a protest sit-in against the `denial` of development funds and empowerment of the local government system in the province.

Members of the tehsil councils and village and neighbourhood councils, mostly from opposition parties, gathered at the Jinnah Park. They later marched on the GT Road and reached the Khyber Road, where they staged a sit-in outside the provincial assembly`s building for more than an hour beforedispersing peacefully.

The closure of the major artery caused a gridlock in the area, causing problems for motorists.

Awami National Partyprovincial president Mian Iftikhar Hussain, spokesman for the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl Haji Abdul Jalil Jan and Jamaat-i-1slami emirs Inayatullah Khan (north) and Abdul Wasi (central) also showed up to express solidarity with the protesting LG representatives.

Chairman of the Trakha village councilin Nowshera Taimur Kamal told Dawn that the protestwould continue until the demands weremet.

He said the LG members would stage a protest today (Friday), with lodging arrangements for those from remote areas made at the JUI-F Mufti Mehmood Markaz, Jamaat-i-1slami`s Markaz Islami and Awami National Party`s Bacha Khan Markaz. Also, many LG representatives from other parts of the province will stay at hujras and guesthouses of their counterparts from the provincial capital.

Mr Kamal said that the protesting LG representatives would gather in Jinnah Park and later march to the Khyber Road, where they would stage a sit-in in front of the provincial assembly.

He said that like MNAsand MPAs, the tehsil, village and neighbourhood council chairmen had also been directly elected by more than 40 million people of the province. `Our protest is meant togetdevelopment funds and other powers for the local government representatives from across the province and it will continue till the acceptance of our demands,` he said.

The charter of the demands shared by the LCA has asked the provincial government to restore the KP LG Act 2019 in its original form. Besides, it also demanded the government to frame the LG Rules of Business in line with Section 112 of the LG Act, 2019.

TheLCAalsodemanded of the government toimmediately release outstanding allocated funds to the local governments under the Provincial Finance Commission Award in the fiscal years from 2021-22 to 2024-25 and provide the elected LG representatives with offices, funds, powers and other amenities.

It also called for an increase in honorarium for those elected on general and reserved seats and said the PFC share of LGs should be increased from 20pc to 30pc.

The LCA demanded that since the government wasted three years of LGs in the province by not releasing even a penny of development funds, their tenure should be extended by three more years by legislation.

ANP KP president Mian Iftikhar Hussian in his speech at the gathering said that LG system has been rendered dysfunctional due to the government`s non-serious attitude. He said that the provincial government was trying to protect its political interest instead of safeguarding the constitutional and legal rights of the LG representatives.

Mr Hussain said that the provincial government denied the local bodies system of any power through amendments in the LG Act.

He also said that a dysfunctional LG system in the province was compounding the problems of the masses and his partywould continue to support the demands of the LCA.

On Wednesday, the KP government had withdrawn Rs3.6 billion funds it had `released` to the tehsil governments on Dec 5, apparently due to the chief minister`s displeasure with the finance department for not adhering to his directives that the money be given away to the ruling PTI-backed councils only.

The unance department in a letter addressed to the deputy commissioners of 29 districts said that in pursuance of the chief minister`s directives, the authorisation of development funds released to the District Accounts-IV on Dec 5 had been withdrawn.

The government had released Rs3.2 billion funds to 51 tehsil councils out of 131, and Rs372 million to the six tehsils of the merged districts on Dec 5.

The development funds were released to the tehsil chairmen affiliated with PTI, ignoring those aligned with the opposition parties.

Following the release of funds, which had mostly gone to the ruling partyaffiliated mayors and tehsil chairpersons, opposition parties decried discrimination and staged a protest outside the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on Tuesday. The protest was meant to inform incarcerated PTI founder Irman Khan about his party`s `discrimination` in the release of funds.