Imran Khan’s Passion for Local Governance System
By Masood H Kizilbash
Islamabad, Pakistan
Prime Minister Imran Khan is deeply committed to introducing a restructured local government system in the provinces.His commitment to the principle of a third tier of the local government is based on historical developments around the globe to involve the people in the policy-making of the state at grass-roots level to achieve the goals of sustainable human development. This is reinforced by his own experience of the successful working of the Local Government Act, 2013 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The experiment of implantation of a viable local government system has been going on since many decades with one system replacing another without attainment of the objective. At the time of the establishment of Pakistan, the local bodies in the provinces were working under various Acts which conferred minor administrative and judicial functions, namely, powers to supervise “Patwaris” and other village officials and some civil and criminal jurisdiction in petty cases. In accordance with these functions, these local bodies were delegated some fiscal power of taxation but with the prior permission of the provinces.
The System of Basic Democracies by Ayub Khan in 1959 was the first system introduced in Pakistan which envisaged people’s participation in development work at grassroots level. All the five tiers created under the system were under the bureaucratic control of “Tehsildar”/Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner. Thus, the whole system remained an appendage of the district administration. The Deputy Commissioners could divert the development funds arbitrarily to administrative convenience and, thus, muzzle the voice of the elected members. After the abolition of One Unit and restoration of four provinces in 1970, all the four provinces enacted their Acts to create a new local government system based on democratic decentralization and involvement of elected representatives in the management of the system with reduced interference from the bureaucracy. The system could not take off as elections to the local bodies were dilly-dallied till the imposition of Martial Law in 1977.
Local Bodies Ordinance 1979: The Ordinance expanded the scope of functional responsibilities at various tiers of local bodies as also their taxation authority. These provisions were circumvented by the provinces through the creation of provincial development bodies to deprive them from performing their legally entrusted functions. At the same time, the local bodies were divested of their major source of revenues of Octroi and Zila tax, abolished in May 1999. Another system came into existence with the promulgation of SBNP Local Government Ordinance, 2001 by General Parvez Musharraf, binding the Governors of provinces to comply and notify the system. For the first time in the history of the country, the distinction between rural and urban areas was removed and the local bodies’ structures were, accordingly, raised. These bodies were delegated enlarged functions not only of intra-District nature but also of inter-District nature which lay in the provincial domain. The bureaucrats were brought under the administrative control of elected “Nazims” while the local governments were vested with non- permissive taxation powers. What is most important is that “Octroi and Zila tax” was restored and the local governments were entitled to received 2.5% of the receipts realized from sales tax in lieu of Octroi/Zila tax. With the passage of the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment, the system was consigned to the archives.
With the transfer of a large number of functions from federal to provincial governments, including local government and rural development under the Eighteenth Amendment, the provinces set out to frame their own versions of local government systems as stipulated in the Local Government Acts of 2013 of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Act of 2014 of Balochistan. The Acts were formulated under the compulsion of Article 140-A inserted in the Constitution to bind the provinces to establish a local government system for devolving political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local government. A comparative study of the Acts clearly reveals that the model restores in varying degrees the provisions of the Local Government Ordinance of 1979 in the three provinces of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.
The provisions include restoration of the principle of rural and urban divide, restoration of old bureaucratic levels of Assistant, Deputy Commissioners and Commissioners and vesting them with the powers of oversight at all the tiers of the local governance systems, grant of taxation authority on permissible basis, restraint on financial management by the provincial auditor and, what is most important, arrogation of the local government functions of health and education through the establishment of the provincial authorities to manage these subjects.
As compared with the LGA’S of the three provinces, the LGA of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa grants some autonomy to local governments to function independently despite some infirmities in the law. Unlike the three provinces, the functions assigned to local governments in KP are much more broad–based; the budget approved by the local government is not subject to review by the provincial government; local governments can disburse funds without prior pre-audit by the Provincial Director, Local Fund Audit; absence of bureaucratic control of local governments and inclusion of elected members of local governments in the Provincial Finance Commission.
The aforesaid historical perspective of attempts to establish local government system teaches us a few lessons. Firstly, the local governance system attempts to overthrow long established authoritative system of governance by the power-wielding elite. Any threat to the power is resisted. Secondly, the bureaucrats who have enjoyed authority since the inception of the country find the local government system a direct challenge to their authority and are willing to lend support to the power-wielding elite to maintain the status-quo. Thirdly, sharing governance with the people at large reduces chances of corruption and amassment of wealth. Fourthly, the four provinces differ widely in geography, political ethos and social systems. A uniform local system contradicts these realities.
The Prime Minister who constituted a high-powered committee to formulate a proposed structure of the local government bodies within one week on September 1, 2018 is still discussing and debating the issue. This is entirely on account of divisiveness within on account of the reasons discussed in the preceding paragraph. Perhaps, other reforms may be necessary to prepare the ground to usher in an enduring and sustainable local government systems in the provinces.
(The author is a retired Additional Secretary of the Government of Pakistan and former Consultant to the National Reconstruction Bureau as well as international agencies and produced monographs on the subject)
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