Haphazard devolution

The concept of devolution of powers to the grass-roots was floated under the Musharraf regime in late 1999. The framework for the devolution plan was placed before sections of the intelligentsia at the initiative of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), a body made up of the President-General's hand picked appointees. Consultations with various influential constituencies of society — politicians, media and civil society — commenced soon thereafter. At the end of this process, the Local Government Ordinance 2001 was promulgated, which contemplated community participation mechanisms through multistage elections to multi-tiered local bodies. The new administrative reforms lead to the creation of three levels of local government: unions, tehsils and districts, a chain of new offices created mainly to facilitate "transparency" to and "participation" of the general public.

It is quite evident that the new system has not delivered what it promised. There are many reasons for the inefficient delivery of public service under this decentralised mechanism. The most important among these is the ambiguous rules of procedure that have been put in place. The local government system has created a fragile and weak relationship between the provincial and the district tiers. Responsibilities and functions are not clearly assigned though it attempts to administratively detach the district from the provincial government. By involving the central government in district administration, the plan ironically hits provincial autonomy by ensuring a constant tension between the federal and the provincial governments. The latter keeps complaining of shortfall of 'effective' powers of government while the former grumbles that their autonomy under the devolution plan is 'ineffective', thanks to their respective upper tiers. An example is the tension between Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government and the district authorities, which was so serious that President Musharraf had to intervene personally to save the system from a possible collapse. Although, in letter, the devolution plan says that local governments shall work within the provincial framework, yet provinces feel that devolution has further reduced the already meagre level of autonomy that they were enjoying.