WHEN the 18th amendment was passed, it was for the first time that the executive authority between the federation and provinces was redefined with provinces given more legislative and policy space. Before this, Pakistan had a heavily centralised governance structure in which the federal government had the sole responsibility to give strategic direction for national development goals.

However, the new constitutional framework reinforced a multilevel governance system by extending greater autonomy to the provinces. Since then, provinces have been trying to augment the policy framework, laws, rules, regulations, system, procedures and processes as per emerging requirements.

Public investment is a critical area that underpins the development agenda of a province. Thus, with enhanced autonomy and expectation to deliver, there is a growing realisation that provinces have to invest in systems and capacity-building to fulfill the goals envisioned in the 18th Amendment.

Although eight years have passed, efforts by the provinces to absorb additional mandate have been found wanting. On the other hand, it is a challenge politically and administratively to take up new roles with regard to policy-making and implementation. The 18th amendment has effected a revision of Federal Legislative List Part I and Part II and abolished the Concurrent Legislative List. As a result, 53 subjects have been assigned to the federal government, 18 subjects to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and all residual subjects to provincial governments.

In the post-18th amendment paradigm, provinces have enacted new laws to regulate devolved functions. As a first step, Sindh enacted the Sindh Revenue Board Act, 2010, to regulate matters relating to the fiscal and related economic policies and later the province promulgated the Sindh Sales Tax on Service Act, 2011, for the levy and collection of Sindh Sales Tax on the services rendered.

The Sindh government has developed a vision which should be followed by growth strategy, which has been unduly delayed due to inefficiency and nitpicking attitude of some bureaucrats. Once the growth strategy is formulated, it will establish broad fiscal parameters, development objectives and priority programmes.

Raja Masroor Hassan
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018