AN intense debate is currently under way between the federal and provincial governments about the future of devolution in Pakistan.

A federal, inter-provincial committee is exploring the option of continuing with the devolution plan introduced by Gen Musharraf in 2001, with substantial modifications, but the provinces seem reluctant to follow this course. They would like to introduce their own respective devolution plans according to their varying needs and priorities on the basis of the 1979 model.

Apparently they are waiting till the end of December 2009 when the constitutional protection given to the four provincial Local Government Ordinances of 2001 will expire. Under the LFO 2002, this protection was for an indefinite period but the compromise reached on the 17th Amendment 2003, reduced this protection to six years. After Jan 1, 2010, provinces will be free to legislate on this subject through their respective assemblies.

It is really unfortunate that despite extensive experimentation over the past 50 years, Pakistan has not been able to evolve a sustainable system of local government. Every time, there is a change of government, a new experiment is launched without building on the strengths and weaknesses of the previous model.

In my view, the basic cause of this failure to establish a durable system springs from the civil-military relationship in the governing structure of Pakistan. Whenever a military regime takes power in Pakistan, local government institutions start flourishing because local institutions are the only representative institutions and create a democratic façade in the country. But with the revival of national and provincial assemblies, the local government institutions set up by a military regime lose their importance and some new experiment is initiated to shift the focus of local political support to the parties in power. This should be clear from the following historical account of local bodies in Pakistan.

The first experiment in decentralisation was the Village Agricultural and Industrial Development Programme (Village Aid) launched in 1954 as a self-help project through an administrative mechanism rather than as a legally established system of local government.

The first legally established local government institutions were Ayub Khan's Basic Democracies created through the Basic Democracies Order of 1959 under which local councillors were elected to undertake community development projects. In addition, 120,000 councillors elected in both wings of the country also served as the electoral college for the election of the president in 1964.

The PPP government elected in 1971 abolished the Basic Democracies system and passed the Peoples' Local Government Ordinance of 1972 but no elections were held under this Ordinance. Instead an Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was launched in 1972.

Gen Ziaul Haq's martial law regime revived the local government institutions in 1979 through the Local Government Ordinance of 1979, under which elections were held in 1979 and 1983 for district, tehsil and union councils. The chairman of the district council was elected by the members of the council, but the district was effectively managed by the deputy commissioner.

The civilian governments from 1985 to 1999 continued the system of local government established by Gen Ziaul Haq, but channelled most of the resources for community development through special programmes. These included Prime Minister Junejo's Five-Point Programme (1986-88), the Peoples Works' Programme of Benazir Bhutto's government in 1988-90 and 1994-96 and the Tameer-i-Watan Programme of Nawaz Sharif's government in 1990-93 and 1997-99.

The martial law government of Pervez Musharraf, which took over in October 1999, introduced a more ambitious devolution plan through the Local Government's Ordinances of 2001 significantly enhancing the functions and resources as well as the political role of local bodies elected

in 2002 and 2005.

Under Article 140-A, added through LFO 2002 and ratified by the 17th Amendment in 2003, “each province shall by law establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected representatives of local government. Before this provision was added in 2001, there were only two brief references in the constitution to devolution in Article 32 “the state shall encourage local government institutions composed of elected representatives” and Article 37(1) “decentralise government administration so as to facilitate the expeditious disposal of business”.

It will thus be seen that all three major pieces of legislation on the subject, namely the Basic Democracies Order of 1959, the Local Government Ordinance of 1979 and the Devolution Plan of 2001, were introduced by military governments to create inter alia, their own base of political support. That is why every civilian government that followed launched their own initiatives to give greater responsibilities to newly elected MNAs and MPAs in determining development priorities at the local level and to curtail the role of local bodies elected during military rule.

Another major difficulty has arisen from the sequencing of these reforms. Ideally, greater decentralisation of functions and resources from the central government to the provinces should have preceded the devolution of power from the provinces to local bodies. In Pakistan local institutions were strengthened at a time when due to prolonged military rule, provincial autonomy was effectively curtailed. Under martial law, the executive invariably becomes stronger at the cost of the other two pillars of the state, namely parliament and the judiciary. This is a serious structural weakness in our system and has to be addressed by strengthening parliament and the judiciary before a viable and sustainable system of local governance can be established in Pakistan.

There is hardly any politician or policymaker who will not endorse the paramount importance of decentralisation for achieving economic growth and for providing good governance. But there are wide differences on the pattern and scope of decentralisation. That is why it is important to spell out the main objectives of devolution as essential criteria on which any devolution plan should be based

-- The basic philosophy of devolution is based on the golden concept of subsidiary i.e. whatever can be done at the local level should not be taken up at the higher tier. But decentralisation also requires coordination between different levels of government and adequate regulations to ensure transparency, accountability and representation.

Decentralisation increases popular participation in decision-making because it brings government closer to the people making it more accessible and knowledgeable about local conditions and more responsive to people's demands. Central and provincial governments located at some distance and preoccupied mostly with national and international issues cannot adequately reflect local priorities and provide the services needed at the local level.

To ensure that the decentralisation effort is not hijacked by the local elites and there is broad-based participation of the people, a strong judiciary and a well-organised civil society is required.

Finally, the state has to transfer adequate fiscal resources to support decentralisation. For these resources to be utilised effectively, local administrative and institutional capacity has to be created and performance judged on the basis of well-defined benchmarks. — To be concluded

The writer is a former finance, agriculture and foreign minister of Pakistan.