LAHORE, Jan 4: Contrary to the claims being made by authorities off and on, the much-hyped devolution plan is still incomplete in the country, reveals a survey conducted by two researchers of the Karachi University.

“As far as the administrative and fiscal decentralisation is concerned, devolution is incomplete in Pakistan,” according to the survey conducted under the Public Sector Framework.

It was carried out by Syed Adnan Haider Ali Shah Bukhari, senior research fellow, faculty of computer sciences, and Muhammad Sabihuddin Butt, senior research economist at Applied Economics Research Centre.

Centrally appointed administrative officers prepare the first draft of district budgets and funds for local governments come almost entirely from the upper-level government with strings attached to it, it says.

The fact is contrary to the key characteristics of a local government that it enjoys the decision-making authority in the preparation of local budgets. But, in Pakistan’s case, the existing ordinances governing devolution suggest that the district councils have little influence over budget preparation or implementation.

Moreover, the district nazim has been given significant influence over district government in the actual plan, it says. A nazim has proposal power, that is, the council must consider the budget proposed by him rather than a budget that is elaborate itself, while there is no explicit amendment authority given to the council.

Instead Article 112 (of the PLGO) speaks only of “council votes to approve the budget submitted by the nazim, even noting in (1) “provided that the charged expenditure may be discussed but shall not be voted upon by the councils.”

The report also points out that under the PLGO, the naib nazim is the chairperson of the council but since he/she is elected on the nazim’s ticket, this gives the executive substantial authority over the affairs of the legislative body without corresponding influence of the body over political future of the nazim.

With respect to fiscal authority too a lot of work has been left incomplete in the local government ordinance, it says. While the local governments have no power to hire and fire staff, nearly all resources for them flow from provincial government.

The formula for provincial allocations and the conditions on those allocations are decided by the Provincial Finance Commission and, ultimately, by the governor. There is no automatic representation of locally-elected officials on the PFC, the report says.

It points out that though the provincial governments themselves are currently all directly appointed by the central government, there are significant and inexplicable differences in the PFC recommendations among Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan, illustrating the discretionary powers of the PFC.

There are substantial limitations to the district government’s discretion regarding the use of financial transactions. The transfers are made into several accounts. The bulk of transfers go to Account I, which mainly consists of expenditures on salaries that, in turn, cannot be used for other purposes.

The survey says the administrative structure under devolution leaves substantial authority in the hands of centrally appointed civil servants.

The DCO office that replaced the deputy commissioner in the earlier set-up lacks many legal powers of the DC, but still has significant executive and managerial responsibilities. Not the least of these is the authority to prepare the first draft of the district budget and control over district personnel.

The nazim’s authority over the DCO is limited. He can request the transfer of the DCO and initiate his performance evaluation, but the transfer goes through only if the provincial government concurs and the nazim’s performance evaluation is valid only if countersigned by the chief secretary and chief minister.

The nazim cannot even directly transfer the officers under the DCO and can only request the provincial government for the purpose.

The survey report says the strict control exercised by the central over local governments brings to the fore a difficult issue that has been little addressed in the literature. That is devolution has been undertaken taking into account the implications of the decision on the central authorities’ own political future.

It says all measures have been taken to ensure that the local governments strengthen the central authorities politically.