PESHAWAR, Aug 28: The NWFP government has opposed a plan formulated by the National Commission for Government Reform (NCGR), for restructuring the federal ministries and divisions, and has instead sought the implementation of the National Reconstruction Bureau’s recommendations on the issue.
The provincial government conveyed its reservations over the reform proposals on Aug 2 at a quarterly meeting of the NCGR, a high-level consultative body headed by Dr Ishrat Hussain, the former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, a senior official told Dawn.
The commission is responsible for suggesting reforms in the government machinery.
The NCGR, according to him, had proposed the abolishment of 10 organisations, merger of 15 and transfer of 32 bodies to the provinces under its proposals for restructuring the federal government.
The Frontier government, in its response over the plan, said that restructuring the ministries and division at the federal level without delegating due authority to the provinces could not help in improving governance and service delivery, the official said. The provincial government, he said, argued that as per the devolution plans, powers and functions were to be devolved from the federal government to the provinces and then to the district governments.
“The provincial government had pleaded that the National Reconstruction Bureau in its study for restructure of higher government organisations had recommended the transfer of 121 departments and organisations to the provinces.
“The federal government, however, has not devolved even a single entity to the provinces so far, thus the NCGR proposal should be reconsidered in the light of the NRB’s study,” the official quoted a representative of the provincial government as saying at the meeting.
The official explained that the provincial government had devolved its powers and functions to the district governments except those pertaining to law and information technology as more than 219,000 employees of the provincial government were now under the administrative control of district governments.
The executive district officer and district coordination officer had been notified as appointing authorities regarding employees in the grades BPS-1 to -10 and BPS-11 to -15 respectively, the official explained, adding that the district cadre of health, school and literacy, and works and service departments had been notified.
The official remarked: “The NCGR was clearly told that its proposal should, in the first instance, address the transfer of powers and function to the provincial government in accordance with the spirit of the devolution plan, while restructuring the federal government.”
He said the NWFP government had also proposed that the ministries of interior, finance, planning and power should establish their sub-offices at the provincial headquarters with maximum powers so that the public could benefit from their operations.