fatman17
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development: Reform, not repeal Syed Mohammad Ali
Devolution must also take place from the federal to the provincial level. This way devolving power will no longer be seen as a tool by a centralist state to bypass the provinces
After the meeting of the Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee last week, the prime minister has announced that conditions are presently not conducive for holding elections for the local bodies, despite the fact that the current term of local governments is going to end soon. Instead, the federal government has been asked to revive the defunct office of the district magistrate and executive magistracy to be put back in place. Thus, it seems that all the effort that had gone into setting up local government structures since the promulgation of the Local Government Ordinance 2001 are simply going to be wasted.
Let us examine why the present government is so adamant on dissolving the local government system, and take a retrospective view of the performance of local governments over the past few years in order to assess if the complete dismantling of this system is merited, or what else may have been done to enable the genuine devolution of power.
The local governments set up by the Musharraf regime have certainly not been able to gain much political support. Besides the MQM, which has control over Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and other large local bodies in Sindh, all other political parties are keen to do away with the existing local bodies. The PMLN is resolved to do so in particular. The Punjab government has even approved a new Local Government Act. Main features of the new law, which is to be enacted through the Punjab Assembly, include separation of the rural and urban areas of cities, re-introduction of municipal corporations and district councils, and giving only municipal functions to them so as to return administrative powers to the official machinery, to be headed either by a deputy commissioner or the DCO.
While the local government system now seems doomed to dismantlement in its current form at least, the fact remains that many of the local governments have made some major achievements on the ground. These achievements range from more responsive service delivery in health and education to the launching of major infrastructure projects or the formation of numerous self empowered Citizen Community Boards across the country.
Local governments are also better placed to spend money more quickly than federal and provincial vertical programmes. Critics have pointed to the lack of fiscal accountability of local governments. In Punjab alone, the Auditor General of Pakistan has identified massive irregularities to the tune of 94 billion rupees and embezzlement of 4.6 billion rupees during the three year period of 2005-2008. However there is no evidence that the bureaucratic system was any less corrupt than the two-pronged Nazim-DCO system established under the Local Government Ordinance of 2001.
This does not mean that the local government set up was perfect. There were several evident problems with it which still needed to be resolved. A host of chronic administrative and financial issues have continued to plague the system. The administrative structure never really got the kind of human resources it needed. A disjoint between urban towns and rural tehsils was also furthering disparities on ground.
Although the local government system managed to create a new category of politicians, based at the district, tehsil and union council levels, the issue of representation of peasants, workers and women remained problematic. It was more common to find factory owners, landlords and the husbands of female councillors occupying these reserved seats then the intended beneficiaries. The capture of Citizen Community Broads by more resourceful people was also a common problem, preventing this entity to become a source of empowerment for the more marginalised segments of society.
Perhaps many of these problems had to do with the fact that drastic changes were made to the entire district administrative set-up without pre-testing the local government system anywhere in the country. It is also hard to dispute the fact that the history of the local government in our country is chequered and mostly it has been put into place by military instead of democratic governments. It has also been scrapped on the basis of political expediencies instead of performance-based indicators.
However, these lessons concerning the technical robustness of local government design or the incremental prospects of reform seem to have been set aside once again due to the political imperative of dismantling a system put in place by a military dictator to break the back of political parties in the country. The fact that these local government elections were held on a non-party basis also fuelled this perception. Moreover, the eventual domination of local governments by PMLQ-backed candidates, and their feared interference in the last general elections, created even more resentment against local governments.
Given the fact that devolution of power has become so politicised, it will be a good idea if the future form of such a system is decided in consultation with the major political parties. While this local governance is being done away with through a process that seems democratic given that major political parties are demanding this action, delaying elections of local government for more than a year will begin to undermine the larger democratic process of holding elections when they are due.
The death of an elaborate local government system which had been put into place already, despite some weaknesses, is regrettable. But it is hard to ignore the fact that decentralisation and devolution are internationally acceptable means of making governance more efficient and responsive.
If fresh local government elections are actually held after a one year delay, one hopes that this time around the provinces will have a greater say in the formation of the system of local governments since even the Constitution of 1973 places the formation of local governments within the domain of provinces. Furthermore, devolution must also take place from the federal to the provincial level. This way devolving power will no longer be seen as a tool by a centralist state to bypass the provinces, but instead imply letting power generally rest at a level which is most responsive and efficient.
The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu
Devolution must also take place from the federal to the provincial level. This way devolving power will no longer be seen as a tool by a centralist state to bypass the provinces
After the meeting of the Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee last week, the prime minister has announced that conditions are presently not conducive for holding elections for the local bodies, despite the fact that the current term of local governments is going to end soon. Instead, the federal government has been asked to revive the defunct office of the district magistrate and executive magistracy to be put back in place. Thus, it seems that all the effort that had gone into setting up local government structures since the promulgation of the Local Government Ordinance 2001 are simply going to be wasted.
Let us examine why the present government is so adamant on dissolving the local government system, and take a retrospective view of the performance of local governments over the past few years in order to assess if the complete dismantling of this system is merited, or what else may have been done to enable the genuine devolution of power.
The local governments set up by the Musharraf regime have certainly not been able to gain much political support. Besides the MQM, which has control over Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and other large local bodies in Sindh, all other political parties are keen to do away with the existing local bodies. The PMLN is resolved to do so in particular. The Punjab government has even approved a new Local Government Act. Main features of the new law, which is to be enacted through the Punjab Assembly, include separation of the rural and urban areas of cities, re-introduction of municipal corporations and district councils, and giving only municipal functions to them so as to return administrative powers to the official machinery, to be headed either by a deputy commissioner or the DCO.
While the local government system now seems doomed to dismantlement in its current form at least, the fact remains that many of the local governments have made some major achievements on the ground. These achievements range from more responsive service delivery in health and education to the launching of major infrastructure projects or the formation of numerous self empowered Citizen Community Boards across the country.
Local governments are also better placed to spend money more quickly than federal and provincial vertical programmes. Critics have pointed to the lack of fiscal accountability of local governments. In Punjab alone, the Auditor General of Pakistan has identified massive irregularities to the tune of 94 billion rupees and embezzlement of 4.6 billion rupees during the three year period of 2005-2008. However there is no evidence that the bureaucratic system was any less corrupt than the two-pronged Nazim-DCO system established under the Local Government Ordinance of 2001.
This does not mean that the local government set up was perfect. There were several evident problems with it which still needed to be resolved. A host of chronic administrative and financial issues have continued to plague the system. The administrative structure never really got the kind of human resources it needed. A disjoint between urban towns and rural tehsils was also furthering disparities on ground.
Although the local government system managed to create a new category of politicians, based at the district, tehsil and union council levels, the issue of representation of peasants, workers and women remained problematic. It was more common to find factory owners, landlords and the husbands of female councillors occupying these reserved seats then the intended beneficiaries. The capture of Citizen Community Broads by more resourceful people was also a common problem, preventing this entity to become a source of empowerment for the more marginalised segments of society.
Perhaps many of these problems had to do with the fact that drastic changes were made to the entire district administrative set-up without pre-testing the local government system anywhere in the country. It is also hard to dispute the fact that the history of the local government in our country is chequered and mostly it has been put into place by military instead of democratic governments. It has also been scrapped on the basis of political expediencies instead of performance-based indicators.
However, these lessons concerning the technical robustness of local government design or the incremental prospects of reform seem to have been set aside once again due to the political imperative of dismantling a system put in place by a military dictator to break the back of political parties in the country. The fact that these local government elections were held on a non-party basis also fuelled this perception. Moreover, the eventual domination of local governments by PMLQ-backed candidates, and their feared interference in the last general elections, created even more resentment against local governments.
Given the fact that devolution of power has become so politicised, it will be a good idea if the future form of such a system is decided in consultation with the major political parties. While this local governance is being done away with through a process that seems democratic given that major political parties are demanding this action, delaying elections of local government for more than a year will begin to undermine the larger democratic process of holding elections when they are due.
The death of an elaborate local government system which had been put into place already, despite some weaknesses, is regrettable. But it is hard to ignore the fact that decentralisation and devolution are internationally acceptable means of making governance more efficient and responsive.
If fresh local government elections are actually held after a one year delay, one hopes that this time around the provinces will have a greater say in the formation of the system of local governments since even the Constitution of 1973 places the formation of local governments within the domain of provinces. Furthermore, devolution must also take place from the federal to the provincial level. This way devolving power will no longer be seen as a tool by a centralist state to bypass the provinces, but instead imply letting power generally rest at a level which is most responsive and efficient.
The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu
