Dand district chief quits over govt apathy

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): The administrative head for the Dand district in southern Kandahar province on Sunday resigned for what he called the provincial government’s neglect of the town.

Ahmadullah Nazak, who served as district chief over the last six years, told a press conference that the town was yet to be officially declared a district and its borders remain undefined.

“Dand is one of the important districts of Kandahar. President Karzai also belongs to this town, which could not attain formal status despite the passage of six years when it was given temporary district designation.”

Nazak said since police were providing security across the district, the situation had improved to some extent. A number of reconstruction projects had been executed in the town, where all schools were functional, but the government continued to ignore it, he claimed.

He said when the services delivery process was launched sometime ago, the payment of salaries to government servants started under the District Delivery Programme (DDP). But the servants had not received their pay over the past 10 months, Nazak alleged.

Nazak claimed a district judge had been appointed seven months ago, but he was yet to report for duty.

He cited nighttime operations by foreign troops another reason behind his resignation, saying the soldiers had recently conducted a raid on the house of a tribal elder who played a key role in peace and reopening schools closed by the rebels.

Nazak further said he had started attending evening classes in Kandahar University, but intelligence officials often told him he could come under attack from insurgents. He claimed to have survived a dozen life attempts during his tenure.

On the other hand, the governor’s spokesman Javed Faisal called the resignation Nazak’s personal decision. He said it was the job of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG) to accept or reject his resignation.

However, he acknowledged the problems cited by Nazak, saying such hardships existed across the country. Faisal said the governor’s house had time and again sent letters to the central government to grant Dand official status of a district.

ma/mud

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