May 1, 2006	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 2, 1427

A Rs2.8 billion special package for Balochistan was announced by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on March 24 for the district development projects. The package provides every district Rs100 million, except Quetta which would receive Rs200 million. Kohlu has been excluded as President Musharraf had already announced Rs1.5 billion package for it.

The package makes up 56 per cent of total Rs5 billion allocated for the countrywide Khushhal Pakistan Programme. Some opposition members of the provincial assembly have criticized the federal government for ignoring the pressing financial needs of the provincial government.

The province is currently passing through its worst financial crisis. Its debt burden is increasing and the province pays Rs52 million monthly (Rs6 billion annually) as interest on loan.

Under the PM’s package, the district nazims can only identify development projects. They are not empowered to utilize these funds for purchasing vehicles, lands, etc. Monitoring teams would be set up to ensure proper utilization of funds for the benefit of common man.

Sources say that the authority still rests with the centre for carrying out a development agenda. Even if the nazims are empowered to utilize funds, the question that still remains unanswered is: do the district governments have the capacity to utilize funds efficiently?

Devolution has empowered nazims and councilors to take charge of development at all three levels: district, tehsils, and union councils. However, many local government units (LGUs) lack commitment and administrative capacity for social sector development. Decentralization requires provinces to transfer revenues to LGUs in the form of formula-driven block-grants, which are not earmarked for specific uses.

LGUs now determine budgets and expenditures for most services, whereas the policy, standard-setting, and monitoring remain with the federal government. In the end, the success of devolution will be measured by the improvements made in services.

District governments are not competent to prepare the salary budget and have no authority to dismiss surplus staff. The district salaries are received and disbursed through the district-controlled Account IV, maintained by the District Accounts Office (DAO). District governments are not permitted to identify and dismiss surplus staff. There is no incentive for districts to find savings in the salary budget and reallocate them for other purposes.

The LGO 2001 as amended in June 2005, provides an institutional framework empowering district governments, tehsil, municipal administrations, and union administrations to manage and administer education, health, and water supply and sanitation sectors with the help of local communities.

The recently notified Balochistan Performance Grant Rules (BPGR) 2005 provides a flexible mechanism for conditional transfers to local governments and to make pro-poor service delivery more responsive to local needs.

A decentralized authority to function effectively needs the favourable conditions and environment, which actually facilitate the devolution. What is primarily important is the environment in which service providers operate under a devolved system of governance, and secondly, the evaluation of the political dynamics that are set in motion as a result of devolution.

The environment in Balochistan is unsuited to the forces at work for change. What is needed is to strengthen them against those forces, which are at work for resisting the change. There are good reasons for creating autonomous local bodies to manage expenditures so as to increase incentives for efficient and effective use of funds and to monitor public expenditures and the services.

It is high time to recognize Balochistan’s diversity and to reassert the broad goals of devolution. It is the difficult terrain and geography, and the peculiar socio-economic and political milieu of the province ( varying from district to district) that presents hard challenges for devolution on different fronts- political, social, economic, cultural, and administrative. Some districts like Mekran in coastal Balochistan are devoid of tribal influences and sardari system.

In the urban areas of Quetta, Pishin, Sibi, Lorlai and of some other districts, the sardari system has almost lost its influence. The Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Khuzdar, Barkhan and Bolan are the tribal societies representing stronghold of different Baloch tribes. The Sardari system itself has undergone changes due to commercialization, economic, social and political independence and induction of a modern form of government, particularly in Pashtoon areas of the northern Balochistan.

In view of the Balochistan’s diversity, what is needed is to accommodate local differences and facilitate some marginal local variations to meet the needs of different areas. Implementation of core principles require new strategies that recognize this diversity while keeping devolution on track.

At present, the basic structures for devolution have been put in place. Local diversity in implementation is feasible. Local institutions need to be allowed to reflect local circumstances.

Decentralization process creates more opportunities for citizens in general to participate at the civil society level. As far as Balochistan is concerned, it is largely a tribal society. So the growth of civil society is the first and fundamental challenge for bringing governance and gender reforms through devolution process. The devolution process has been going at a snail’s pace and has not gained momentum yet.

No doubt, the local government system offers major opportunities for reforms and a level of political representation that is closer to and more dependent on public interests. Actual delivery responsibility is devolved to local governments with revenue-matching expenditure assignments and associated control over establishment and service delivery outfits.

It is evident that to make public service delivery more efficient, equitable, effective, and sustainable, serious problems in the economic, social, legal, and political aspects of governance, participation, and financing must be addressed.

The LGO emphasizes the role of the community to increase accountability. The citizen community boards (CCBs), public-private partnerships, and the private sector can play important role in expanding social services.

The devolution of social service management in local governments presents an opportunity to improve service delivery. The transition from provincial to local government involves many institutional, capacity, legal, and financial challenges.

Policy reforms and assistance are needed to consolidate ongoing reforms and implement the next phase of reforms, improve the capacity of managers and providers, and encourage the private sector and ordinary citizens to participate in social service delivery.

Devolution with all its merits cannot be made effective if its deficiencies of parallel administrative control and interference of federal and provincial governments in operations are not removed. Actually we are faced with the problem of theoretical models, which do not fit into the local situations with special reference to the social set-ups, political economy, development infrastructure and available human and financial resources. It is very much true in the case of Balochistan.