The Senate last week shored up support for the federating units when it unanimously called for a greater say in legislation to protect provincial rights and ensure their meaningful participation in federal affairs.

This coincided with a government report laid before the parliament over performance of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) as required under Article 153(4) of the constitution. The next article 154(3) of the constitution required that the CCI have a permanent secretariat and should meet at least once in 90 days.

The CCI does not have a permanent secretariat, nor does it meet every 90 days — at least in the PML-N’s tenure. In fact, the report revealed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called only seven meetings of the CCI between July 2013 and March 2016, instead of the mandatory 14. With a gap of about nine months, the CCI met again in December 2016.

The CCI annual report 2015-16 reported just two meetings during the year in quick succession — on Feb 29 and Mar 25, 2016. The prime minister approved 11 items on the agenda in these two meetings and only one of them pertained to the provinces, Balochistan being the lucky one. Ten out of 11 cases taken up by the CCI were of the centre’s interest.

This has led to repeated grumbling by the provinces over the centre’s iniquitous behaviour regarding critical inter-provincial matters despite an enshrined participatory federalism in the country’s constitution.

“There is a difference between theory and practice. Raja Zafarul Haq moved a resolution to improve centre-provincial relations in theory while in practice the government ignores forums like the CCI and NFC”

“There is a difference between theory and practice. Raja Zafarul Haq (PML-N leader of the house) moved a resolution to improve centre-provincial relations in theory while in practice the government is ignoring forums like the CCI and NFC”, said an official.

The resolution approved unanimously by the senate sought major amendments to 11 articles of the constitution dealing with centre-provincial relationship in the light of the spirit of the 18th Amendment, introduced in 2010 to provide more autonomy to the provinces.

In recent months, smaller provinces, particularly Sindh and Khyber Pakhtun­khwa, have alleged that the federal government is encroaching upon provincial domains, particularly in the areas of oil, gas, finances and water.

They have publicly opposed the prime minister’s decision to transfer five key regulatory bodies from the cabinet division to their line ministries for administrative purposes that the provinces view as a conflict of interest and encroachment on provincial rights.

The two provinces have now demanded that these regulatory bodies be first transferred to an inter-provincial coordination division to restore their independence for an interim period and ultimately to a permanent secretariat of the CCI.

The two federating units have also been challenging the jurisdiction and locus standi of the Cabinet Committee on Energy led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

The two provinces have further raised objections over policy guidelines issued by the ECC for two regulators — Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) — regarding gas and electricity tariffs, saying that the two regulatory bodies themselves fell in the provincial domain through CCI and could not be given directives by the federation without going through the CCI.

The CCI report presented to the parliament said only six out of 11 decisions taken by the council during financial year 2015-16 could be implemented.

This was despite the fact that the report highlighted that the forum was created after ‘highly centralised decision making and denial of provincial rights led to the East Pakistan tragedy in 1971’.

“Even after this woeful episode the Pakistani federal experience had been marred by continued conflicts and crisis between the federation and provinces for greater autonomy and control over natural resources”, the report noted and termed the 18th constitution amendment a great effort to reform and restructure the CCI to promote a culture of participatory federalism.

The report went on to add that the CCI had taken up a total of 37 summaries in the two past years — 2013-14 and 2014-15 —32 of them were moved by the centre and only five by the four provinces.

The CCI also reported to the parliament that following the 18th Constitution Amendment in April 2010, the PPP government arranged a total of 10 meetings by January 2013 — all within the 90-day requirement except for a couple of minor slippages.

The CCI secretariat said the issues of inter-provincial jurisdiction always had a chequered history that led to the 1971 debacle. It said the 1956 constitution provided for an Inter-Provincial Council but this was totally ignored in the 1962 Constitution. Again, the 1973 Constitution created the CCI in the spirit of federalism after the ‘bitter experience of One Unit administration in West Pakistan’.

The report said the formulation and regulation of policies and exercise of supervision and control over related institutions by the CCI has taken away the powers of the federal government in matters covered in the Federal Legislative List part-II. But the parliament still has the power to legislate on all Federal Legislative List (FLL) matters whether these were in Part-I or Part-II.

“In view of this legal position, the executive authority of the federation also extends to all matters covered in FLL, both in Part-I and II. The scope and operationalisation of the CCI’s powers in FLL part-II is to be decided by the Council itself. No other institution can interfere in this matter”, the report asserted and said the CCI or the federal government and provincial governments have “never questioned any decision of the CCI by making a reference to the parliament”.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, February 20th, 2017