In a high-level meeting held on December 28 last, President Pervez Musharraf decided to continue with the non-party based electoral format for the local government elections.
Accommodating the demands of various provincial governments, many changes in the system were undertaken including the appointment of administrators during the election time frame. One however gets this impression that most of these decisions are an attempt to keep the local body system alive through a Presidential incubator.
The legal, administrative and political premise of the system is very fragile. This inherent weakness is unfortunately inbuilt as there are many vital issues that have been swept under the carpet. Unless these issues are resolved, the possibility of existing local body system to sustain are fairly bleak.
As it is, the present system has come into force through an ordinance which was later ratified by the parliament. However, there are several political groups that have cited their continuing dissent on this system terming it as a breach of provincial autonomy guaranteed by the constitution.
Open debate in the provincial assemblies never took place as the system was imposed from the centre without any kind of consensus- building effort. Political forces are dissatisfied with the system on more than one counts.
At one stage, almost all the District Nazims in NWFP resigned from their offices to show their frustration due to frictions with the provincial government. Obviously, the centre had to intervene to bail out the system.
However, there remains a similar a kind of political discord in almost all the provinces. Apparently, parliament was the rightful forum to decide about the objectives, working norms and division of authority and responsibilities between various tiers of government.
The system is wholly dependent on the federal government for its finances. It is common sense that financial subordination amounts to administrative subordination. Federal government is able to acquire strategic advantage by fiddling around development priorities and setting them according to its whims.
The local governments have very limited possibility to change the priorities of spending in any such situation. At times, the local administrations had to give in to many projects which were locally unpopular. Lyari Expressway in Karachi and the real estate development in Gwadar can be cited as two examples.
In the former, massive evictions and undetermined land use were the points of concern. In the latter, the fear of losing control of the city to non-local stockholders was collectively lamented. Capacity to locally generate revenue to. deal with the routine affairs of union / town / district councils is still not developed.
Tutelage of upper tiers on financial decision making, limited threshold capacity of the local bodies, shrinking avenues of enterprises and absence of basic infrastructure for promoting sustainable enterprises are some reasons for the limited capacity of local institutions to generate revenue.
Provincial and federal governments are also keen participants in very small scale developmental activates. Whereas the federal government claims to have delegated the power of execution of developmental schemes to local government, one still finds MNAs, MPAs and senators directly intervening in routine tasks of municipal works which are not their statutory responsibility.
Political will to fully implement the system has not been observed throughout the past tenure of the local bodies. All the provincial governments have agreed to hold forthcoming local body elections in the absence of sitting -District Nazims.
District Coordination Officers, who are directly controlled by the provincial bureaucracy, shall acquire the powers of Nazims during that interim period. The resulting scenario of the elections is now any body's guess. It is ironic to note that in this most crucial phase of decision making, the federal government did not draw any feedback from the Nazims themselves.
While the overall local government system in Pakistan requires a serious review and assessment, the urban areas are deemed foremost priority. Fast pace of urbanisation in the country and shortcomings in respect of service delivery capacity is a prime issue.
Baring an extremely few contexts, the 500-odd cities in the country are in shambles. Water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, roads and streets development / maintenance, basic health care, primary education, management of markets, maintenance and running of slaughter houses, planning and development of amenities, housing and community development are few basic ingredients of service provision where cities fall short by huge margins.
In the prevailing tug-of-war between provinces and district governments, little good can be expected. A consensus political framework is a pre-requisite for smooth provision of urban services.
Lessons can be drawn from many similar contexts which passed through similar phases and reached a mutually agreed outcome. City statutes of Brazil are examples in this reference.
Lessons from Brazil regarding the 'statute of the city' are fairly relevant and useful. The federal government in Brazil, municipalities and civil society institutions participated to prepare a consensus piece of law which was promulgated in 2001. It was a useful attempt to address the ground realities in the Brazilian urban context.
After critical assessment, many expert and professional groups including the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS-Habitat) found the City Statute as a useful policy instrument and a source of learning for similar urban contexts.
The city statute has four components viz conceptual, regulatory, democratic management of cities and legal instruments for informal settlements.
At the conceptual level, the Brazilian city statute empowers the municipalities to interpret the collective vision of respective cities through local master plans.
In other words, the statute attempts to create a balance between individual aspirations and collective social needs. The regulation of land use is also very effectively laid down. The law attempts to check land speculation/real estate market by appropriate measures of land and building taxation.
It focuses on the intensive utilisation of land and control of undesirable horizontal expansion. The statute has laid down conditions to enable municipalities to promote the removal of occupiers of unsuitable public land to more suitable areas.
Political process is generated to provide support to this vital aspect of city development which requires considerable administrative support at all the levels as land and its usage and control happens to be of immense value to a diverse range of stockholders.
One of the most important aspects of the city statute was the creation of legal instruments to promote land tenure regularization programmes in a bid to democratize the conditions of access to urban land and housing.
The law also allowed the use of public land for shelter-less people for a stipulated period till such time that the shelter could be arranged for the homeless subjects. This corollary allowed for catering to the legitimate rights of people who were without access to shelter or its means.
Obviously the implementation of the city statute has become a challenging task for the Brazilian authorities. However, the positive aspect is the fact that the key stakeholders - federal government, municipalities and civil society institutions - have come on one platform to see through the application of the statute itself.
For the urban centres of Pakistan, many lessons can be drawn from the Brazilian experience. One, the right to shelter has to be considered as fundamental for all the dwellers of the city.
Two, when the approach of the federal government becomes accommodating for other urban stakeholders, an enabling environment is created. That is to say that the federal government needs to delegate decision making prerogative to the municipalities in the true sense of the word. Hollow devolution or decentralisation shall be of no use irrespective of jugglery of offices and officers.
Three, the status of land in cities need to be re-visited as a prime municipal task. It is that kind of asset which can neither be expanded nor created anew.
Sprawl like expansions without planning and management need to be checked, especially in large urban centres such as Karachi and Lahore. Greed of certain ranks to convert land parcels into trading commodities are utmost harmful for the healthy survival of the cities.
And four, the democratic approach to urban management is of prime importance. This means the change of attitudes of the stakeholders to accommodate opposing view points and delivering rights to all the citizens including the vulnerable sections of the society. Mere restructuring the electoral process shall not bring about any lasting change.
