FAIZABAD (Pajhwok): The Badakhshan provincial council head on Sunday identified acting officials running government affairs, insecurity and lack of coordination among local departments as the main challenges facing the northeastern province.
Provincial council members say the only delay in their work was when they went on strike for over 40 days to regain their oversight rights on local departments.
They have compiled a report on their activities since they started work in 14 sections, including monitoring and evaluation of local departments, support for security forces, collecting information about people’s grievances and ways of addressing them.
Abdullah Naji, the provincial council chairman, told Pajhwok Afghan News travelling to far-flung districts and resolving people’s problems,such as tribal and land disputes, was part of their agenda.
Thanks to the council’s efforts, he claimed, the price of one kilowatt of thermal power had been reduced from 45 to 28 afghanis. More than 5,000 people in Faizabad consume this electricity. Another 300 families use hydro power.
Ghulam Mohammad Atashpur, a Faizabad resident, called the decline in electricity price a good example of the council’s positive role. He said the monitoring of local departments had resulted in institutional reforms.
However, Atashpur said security had been a major impediment in the way of Badakhshan’s development. He called for sustained efforts to overcome the challenge on a priority basis.
For his part, the provincial council head listed five major challenges including lack of coordination among local departments, high expectations of residents, insecurity in some parts and inadequate cooperation from some departments with the provincial council.
Lack of finances for regular visits to districts was among the other problems being faced by the council, he explained, calling for the removal of acting officials and appointment of permanent ones.
Warduj and Jurm districts are considered unsafe. Two months back, local Taliban and foreign fighters overran an army check-post in Jurm district, killing 27 soldiers and decapitating eight of them.
Also last month, 18 policemen were killed in Warduj district. According to local officials, more than 250 foreign fighters took part in the Badakhshan fighting. They also claimed the insurgents had lost many fighters in the clashes.
The provincial council chief added preventing natural calamities and coordinating the utilisation of domestic and foreign aid was also among their top priorities.
He said they also taken counter-narcotics measure in the province and planned to bring poppy cultivation to an end. Last year, poppies were grown on 8,000 hectares of land, of which 5,000 hectares were eradicated. Poppy cultivation has dropped this year in the province.
Abdul WaseilLatifi, a resident of Faizabad, recalled people had voted for young candidates in last year’s provincial council elections. The successful members have since proven their worth, measuring up to public expectations.
He expressed his satisfaction with council’s assistance to the people facing problems in judicial organs.
But Sadia, a Kabul University graduate and resident of Faizabad, said: “We need peace, something the provincial council has failed to bring us.”She said they had held many meetings with provincial council members regarding peace but there have been no results.
Sadia was of the opinion that peace was vital to Badakhshan’s development and the council needed to come up with suggestions for how to improve law and order in the remote province, bordering Pakistan and Tajikistan.
hg/mud
