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Musharraf package for Northern Areas

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf announced a package of financial and administrative powers to the Northern Areas on Tuesday.

Under the measures announced by Gen. Musharraf in Gilgit, the 34-member Northern Areas Legislative Council has been renamed Assembly, and is to gain the powers to prepare, debate and pass the Northern Areas budget and development, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

Gen. Musharraf is reported to have said “most of the powers presently being exercised by the [federal] Ministry of Kashmir and Northern Areas would be transferred” to the Northern Areas Legislative Assembly, and its leader, an elected representative, is to be called Chief Executive.

The leader of the NALC was known as deputy chief executive and worked under the federal KANA Minister, who was the designated Chief Executive. The Minister is to be redesignated as Chairman, Northern Areas.

Members of the Northern Areas assembly may also move a vote of no-confidence against the Chief Executive, or the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker.

The President also announced the setting up of a Northern Areas Development Working Party to be headed by an additional chief secretary, for approval and execution of the development projects in various sectors. The Chief Secretary Northern Areas will act as the Principal Accounts Officer. An audit and Account Institution for Northern Ares is to be put in place. It is not clear yet how much power the Chief Executive will have in making the top appointments in the bureaucracy. Earlier, the appointments were made by the KANA Ministry, and the bureaucrats were answerable to the federal minister.

Gen. Musharraf said most of the 52 proposals prepared by the Northern Areas Legislative Council had been approved by the government, and said the devolution package would “usher in a new era of maximum autonomy for the people of the Northern Areas…”

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