ALPURI: A total of 633 elected representatives, including five tehsil chairmen and members of village councils, formally left their offices after the four-year tenure of local government councils came to an end in Shangla.
Following the completion of the local bodies’ term, five tehsil chairmen, 105 village council chairmen, 210 general councillors, 105 farmers’ councillors, 105 women councillors, 105 youth councillors, and two minority representatives have completed their mandated period.
Most of the 105 village councils in Shangla were represented by members affiliated with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The party also secured chairmanships in three of the district’s five major tehsils, Alpuri, Puran and Bisham.
The PTI-backed tehsil chairmen included Waqar Ahmad Khan in Alpuri, Haji Syed Sadidur Rehman in Bisham and Haji Abdul Maula in Puran.Meanwhile, the tehsil chairmanships of Chakesar and Martung had won by candidates from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Awami National Party (ANP), respectively.
Despite PTI’s dominance in the local government setup, many elected representatives termed the outgoing tenure as one of the least effective local government periods in both Shangla and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to local representatives, development funds remained largely unavailable for most of the four-year term, preventing LG reps from launching projects and addressing people’s needs in line with voters’ expectations.
Although some funds were released during the final year of the tenure, representatives said the allocations were insufficient to meet development requirements and had only a limited impact on local infrastructure and public services.
As a result, many councillors and chairmen spent the majority of their term without meaningful development resources, limiting the effectiveness of grassroots governance and undermining the core objectives of the local government system.
