KARACHI: Pakistan has seen a lot of political drama around the issue of local government elections lately: from the Supreme Court ruling that declared the absence of a local government system for the past nine years unconstitutional to the current political tactics that saw the National Assembly pass a bill allowing for party-less local government elections. So a talk on the topic, ‘Local Government polls: is devolution anathema to political parties?’ on Friday could not have come at a better time.

A collaboration between the Herald magazine and the Centre of Excellence in Journalism at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), the panel discussion on Friday featured the economist Ali Cheema, Farhan Anwar, an urban planner and the director of Sustainable Initiatives, and retired lieutenant general Tanwir Naqvi. Leon Menezes, a professor of business at IBA, moderated the session.

Take a look: ECP ‘ready’ for LG polls in Punjab, Sindh on Sept 20

The debate touched on a number of topics ranging from the effectiveness of local government systems to the future of urban development. One of the highlights was the discussion on the historical context of government systems in Pakistan. A large part of the mechanics of the political system in the country can be traced to British colonial rule, and the panellists pointed out that the centralised system of government is no exception.

Gen Naqvi, for instance, argued that the pre-1947 “centralised bureaucracy” was a system that was implemented by and suited the “British elite”, and that “it was not of the people, for the people and by the people” — as it should be. Local governance, he emphasised, was the missing democratic element to counteract centralisation. While Mr Cheema agreed with Gen Naqvi, he felt that the relationship between the British and the locals was not as “extractive” and that the British did give opportunities for locals to participate politically. Both, however, agreed that local government was a step in the right direction.

Anwar, on the other hand, pointed out that even if local governments become an integral part of the country’s political landscape, they won’t be effective till they possess “fiscal power”. “Pakistan is still highly centralised, they don’t have the capacity to generate revenue. A city like Karachi that generates 70 per cent of the revenue has to wait for the money to come from the federal government,” he added.

He further added that metropolitan governments around the world have the power to generate their own funds to run their cities. According to Anwar, the US city of Los Angeles, for example, owns and runs the world’s “seventh busiest airport and the sixth busiest harbour”. In contrast, Karachi’s government owns “only 38 per cent of the city”. Mr Menezes pointed out that it is for this reason — a paucity of means to generate funds — that has led to billboards cluttering Pakistani cities: “right now, these are the only form of revenues for cities,” he said.

While Mr Anwar mainly focused his discussion on how cities such as Karachi need to revamp their governance structure to develop and bring themselves into the future, Mr Cheema and Gen Naqvi talked about the impact of “dynastic politics”. The economist emphasised that “50 per cent of politics [in Pakistan] is dynastic, and that the local government has to disrupt this oligarchic hold of political parties”. Mr Anwar agreed with Mr Cheema, arguing that local politicians are groomed at the local government level: “the local government acts as nurseries that can allow [politicians] to move on to the provincial and then the national level”.

While a local government system may benefit grassroots politicians, Gen Naqvi emphasised that the whole point of having such a system is so a constituent “should not have to spend the whole night out to sort their problems”. In other words, local governance allows for a more participatory approach.

Mr Anwar, however, argued that such a system would not be effective till responsibilities for each tier of government is clearly defined. He pointed out, for instance, that it is the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board that now oversees garbage collection in Karachi — an odd arrangement since no city in the world is run like this at the provincial level. “Who has heard of the provincial government collecting garbage?” he asked.

The urban planner emphasised that an effective city government is all the more important considering that 75 per cent of the world’s population shall be living in cities by 2050. Around 35-40 per cent of Pakistan is currently urbanised, he added. This development is all the more worrying, according to Mr Anwar, considering that Pakistanis “are still stuck in some sort of twilight zone. Local governance [around the world] has totally changed. We’re still talking about master planning — no one in the world does that [master planning] anymore”.

Even though the debate went off on tangents at times, and was often repetitive, it was still informative and the audience showed a keen interest in the discussion. At the start of the panel, one wondered what an army general, an urban planner and an economist have in common. Why, a passion for local governance, of course!

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play