Wednesday, August 10, 2011



For God’s sake, think about the people

By Afnan Khan

LAHORE: The current display of anguish and anger by the people of interior Sindh over the restoration of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001 is understandable, especially when it comes at a time when federal and provincial governments are shuttling the people back and forth between commissioner and local government systems.

Although the civil society in Pakistan has been struggling for the restoration of the local government system in the country since its suspension after the 2008 general elections, these public protests are more about the problems the people of interior Sindh face due to the division of districts. According to them, political parties act in their own interest interests as opposed to the public’s.

The Pakistan People’s Party and Muttahidda Qaumi Movement, both major stakeholders in Sindh, have not begun a debate on this issue in the provincial assembly despite the fact that it is a provincial issue under the 18th amendment.

The PPP should have taken the citizens and their elected representatives into confidence before going through with the deal, the result of a clandestine meeting between former law minister Babar Awan and Sindh Governor Ishratul Ebad.

No matter how smart the PPP thinks their politics of reconciliation is, the people of interior Sindh feel betrayed by their party in this case and they will have to heal the damage the people feel the PPP has done through signing another compromise with MQM.

Political parties are currently stoking the fire lit under the debate on the creation of provinces, with some demanding Pakistan be divided into as many as a dozen provinces. None show any interest in restoring the local government system despite the fact that both provincial division and local government systems are aimed at devaluating power to the grassroots, while the latter can best serve the purpose.

There is no doubt that the elected representatives of people from their own colonies and areas can resolve public affairs better than the bureaucrats who are bound to follow the instructions given by their own bosses and do not have much understanding of the problems citizens face.

In this case it was not possible for the bureaucracy alone to sabotage such a powerful system, which for the first time empowered 40,000 women, along with tens of thousands of men through local government elections.

Our own elected representatives and political parties, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, axed the local government system in collaboration with the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments.

Having an elected representative of the public as a nazim in a union council gave a true picture of democracy as is being practiced by developed countries, including the United States where people, even in the time of the Wild West, had a right to elect their local sheriffs.

The parties again gave their political interests higher priority than public interest because they were afraid that most nazims and councillors in union councils and districts would belong to their opponent political parties and could not see them sharing power with them at any level and because the members of national and provincial assemblies from the same parties would not have obtained money they get in the name of development work at their disposal.

The Local Government Ordinance of 2001 was a meticulously planned document, which empowered the people focusing the devolution of political power, decentralisation of administrative authority, distribution of resources to districts, de-concentration of management functions and diffusion of the power-authority nexus.

It was through this system that the districts became empowered and managed to build new hospitals, schools, infrastructure and institutions in far-flung areas of the country including the districts of ever-neglected south Punjab.

However, much has remained incomplete and pending due to the premature suspension of the system in the country. The government, including the elected representatives of the constituencies in national and provincial assemblies, could not meet the pace of development that was previously going on.

If the local government system was so good that the PPP had to come back to it within days of restoring the commissionerate system, then why did the biggest political party think about restoring the same system in other provinces despite being in coalition with PML-N in Punjab?

None of the key political parties ever made a sincere effort to hold local government elections, which were due since January 2010. People, especially the youth, are watching all this very carefully and are taking note of this lack of interest among political parties in their problems.

People are also aware of the fact that every new government blames previous governments for the plight of the country. Pakistan is standing on the brink of chaos with problems like inflation, terrorism, declining economy and the prevailing chaos in the nucleus of our economy, Karachi.

Our political leadership should learn a lesson from what is happening in Egypt, Tunisia and now London. For God’s sake, think about the people.

Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk

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