LAHORE, May 25: Elected representatives in the district governments are facing an uncertain future due to hostile attitude of parliamentarians, both from the treasury as well as the opposition benches, and the resistance by the bureaucrats furious over curtailment of their powers under the new system.
This system was a brainchild of the National Reconstruction Bureau introduced around two years ago.
Not holding the by-elections to about 2,775 vacant seats of Nazims and councillors at various tiers is adding to their worries, as they believe that the authorities concerned are losing interest after utilizing them in the April 30 presidential referendum and Oct 10 polls.
A district Nazim, who requested anonymity, said they feared that the government might dump them to appease the opposition, especially the MMA, which is against 33 per cent representation of women in the new system.
He said the provincial governments were reluctant to accept them for having a grudge over being bypassed while introducing the three-tier district, tehsil and union council system.
He claimed that Gen Pervez Musharraf had admonished Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi at the Governor’s House during a visit to Lahore when the latter gave a statement about amending the local bodies system. “The provincial authorities were told that the local councils would be directly answerable to the governor and not the provincial government,” he added.
Since the provincial governments were not consulted when the new system was being devised, they will be at odds with the local governments for long, predicts seasoned journalist and human rights activist I A Rahman.
The opposition exhibits hostility towards the system because it sees it as a tool in the government control used for winning the last general elections through ‘discriminatory’ use of the development funds.
The political use of the councils in the referendum and the general elections created doubts in the people’s minds that these had perhaps been created for the purpose, said Mr Rahman, who is disappointed by the people elected to the local councils.
Members of the Senate, National and provincial assemblies are opposed to the local councils because under the devolution plan these have been authorized to execute all the development schemes, depriving them of the opportunity to win over their constituents by initiating uplift works in their respective areas.
It has also eliminated chances for them to have their share in the misappropriation of development funds and say in the bureaucracy’s affairs.
Khwaja Ahmad Hassan, a town Nazim, said they were ready to accommodate the uplift schemes to be recommended by the MPs. “There is no tussle between the MPs and councillors at the Data Ganj Bakhsh Town,” he claimed.
The players sitting outside the district governments see it as an alien system, not grown up through the experience of the locals and lacking the business rules. Those in the game admit that it lacks proper monitoring and checks and balances. It also has certain flaws at implementation level, they believe.
There is no authority to redress complaints if a Nazim tends to violate rules. The provincial assembly can remove a district Nazim, but with a two-thirds majority.
Funds are released to the district assemblies through the provincial assembly, and the district Nazims distribute in the tehsil and union councils.
It is also alleged that the development funds are allocated to various union councils for personal liking.
Union Council 92 (Lahore) Nazim Shoaib Khan Niazi alleged that the district Nazim had not allocated even a single penny for his area during the last two financial years because he belonged to the PML-N. District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood has the support of the PML-Q which was carved out of the PML-N after the ouster of the Nawaz Sharif government in 1999.
Consultation was said to be the spirit of the new system, but in most of the cases Nazims do not bother even to discuss any issue with their respective deputy Nazims before taking a decision. “Consequently, people (not in the lobby of a Nazim) feel themselves alienated to the system,” Mr Hassan said.
The district governments are allegedly fringing upon the powers of the lower tiers. The tehsil councils had been entrusted with the development work in the original plan, but virtually all the three tiers were now executing various schemes on their own. There was every chance that a contractor might recover bills for a scheme from all the three tiers, feared Mr Hassan.
Seeing the election procedure and the autonomy given to the district Nazims, past masters in the field believe that the system has been devised without taking into consideration the local environment and customs.
Although the system is in the process of formation, it can be safely said that it has not been grown out of the experience of the people, says Mr Rahman. “We feel that people have not been involved in the process. Not to talk of enhancing their participation in the governance system.”
According to the Aurat Foundation Punjab coordinator Sheikh Asad Rahman, an overwhelming majority of the elected councillors lack understanding of the system. “The material provided to them for comprehending the rules of the business is either in English or in Urdu. It is difficult to understand, especially by the women councillors, he said.
He said the NGO was working on a plan to repackage the documents in a comprehensible language. However, he admits that the task is difficult. “The documents have been framed by someone else and first of all the transcriber has to be clear on the issue.”
