Crisis in the Local Councils

The present military government having consumed three years of its indefinite term in an effort to provide a label of democracy, not yet acceptable to the debating society also known as Commonwealth, made a great hullabaloo about devolution of powers to the grass roots.
Even a good idea can be spoiled by clumsy execution. It can backfire when ulterior motives are at work. What actually happened was a delegation of provincial powers to the local councils by the Federal Government. Obviously the exercise carried out in a political vacuum, and without consulting the provincial governments whose powers were intended to be abridged, presaged a near disaster.
The arrival of the provincial governments on the scene subsequent to the elections to local councils has given rise to an inevitable contest for power over patronage. Hence the present stand off between the provincial governments and the local governments.
A lot has been written on the weaknesses of the system. In the following paragraphs I have touched upon some of the fundamental flaws experienced during the last two years of the working of the system. Under the devolution plan evolved by 'experts' in a political void, a lifeless uniform law with minor adjustment allowed to each province was promulgated in all the four provinces, and as a result of elections held under those Ordinances district governments came into being.
Because this was a new experiment in large-scale devolution of power teething problems, an expression that fails to adequately encompass the extent of the malady, were bound to be encountered.
Some of the problems could not have been foreseen for lack of time and foresight because progenitors of the scheme were working over time against a self-designated dead line.
One of the great merits of the devolution plan was the much-touted pursuit of gender equality and the proposal to provide greater representation to women. The latest news from Timergarh in Dir would indicate that this important element of devolution scheme involving gender equality has fallen by the way side.
All the major parties have banned women from contesting by-elections to the local councils. In a meeting all major political parties including PPP, ANP, PML (N) and the Government parties unanimously decided not to allow women to file nomination papers against the seats reserved for them. They also decided that women would not be allowed even to cast their votes.
The pity is that even the progressive PPP went along with this obscurantist decision. Making the law is one thing and making it happen is quite another. The experts of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), heavily bankrolled by UNDP, could not foresee the effect of the proposal.
The Federal Government had nothing to lose anyway because it never transferred an iota of its own powers but devolved the power that were never it's from the provincial governments to the district governments.
Not only that it arrogated to itself the powers that ordinarily belonged to the provincial governments, like holding elections or legislating on behalf of the local councils. That's why the Chief Election Commissioner is seen busy organising by-elections to the Local Councils. Besides, the 'thinkers' sitting in Islamabad nationalised the law on local government by imposing uniformity on all the provinces.
The law by definition should be local.
Among the most pressing problems the local councils confront are the following:
(a) Lack of finances;
(b) Absence of powers to control bureaucracy;
(c) Absence of control over the police, pivotal to maintaining law and order;
(d) A plethora of bureaucratic bodies; and
(e) Continuous hostility between the local councils and the provincial governments.
Provincial Finance Commissions constituted to recommend transfer of resources from the provinces to the local councils are still struggling with their terms of reference perhaps. One has not heard of any award anyway. The provinces have no funds left to transfer, the national pie having been almost entirely pre-empted by the Federal Government, including horrors of horror, the octroi tax which for at least two centuries formed the main stay of local government finances. Lacking resources, the much-trumpeted devolution is no more than sloganeering.
Absence of power to control bureaucracy is another area of serious concern. At present the civil service belonging to the local councils is controlled and regulated by the Local Government Boards at the provincial level. Only very junior employees like clerks and below are appointed by the councils themselves.
As a result the councils are beholden to the provincial governments for efficient and honest civil servants.
Civil service management is crucial to smooth working of the local councils. Civil services are the guarantors of continuity of a system. The provincial government has a great say in managing the local councils in a province in general and managing its civil service in particular. Officers appointed to the local councils by the provincial government make a great deal of difference to the success or failure of the system.
Going by the cultural mores of the people, there is a great pressure for seeking transfer of the favourites to particular councils and for the undesirables to be removed to far away places.
The power of transfer carries a great deal of meaning for the civil servants, who in order to ensure a posting of choice succumb to the pressure from people exercising control over them and commit acts which may be irregular or outright illegal.
Simple transfer may make or mar the 'financial' career of a civil servant. A corrupt civil servant will have no difficulty in finding willing partners among the elected councillors.
Responsibility for management of civil servants including their transfers and postings resides in the hands of the provincial government. Karachi offers a microcosm of the kind of issues one would experience in any other council in the country.
The provincial government in Sindh and the district city government of Karachi belong to different political stripes. In the absence of any other controls under the Local Government Ordinance, the provincial government is left trying to create problems for the district government by ordering transfer of civil servants disregarding the protests.
The officers transferred out of the district government are either more efficient or perhaps more amenable to the dictates of the district government, whereas the new ones may be hostile, having been assigned a covert agenda or having received informal instructions from the provincial government, to create hurdles in the way of Local Councils.
A discussion with the district governments as well as the provincial government will be necessary to determine the best possible course of action, which among others would involve the option of districtising the local council service.
Then there is the case of Khairpur Mirs in Sindh whose district Nazim is a member of Pakistan Peoples Party.
The provincial government has created all kinds of problems for the district government almost paralysing it. There have been reports that the police have also been ordered to harass the district government members.
PML (Q), which supposedly wields power in the province, shows overt hostility towards the district governments controlled by Sindh's majority party PPP.
Then there is the moot question of police and as to who should control it. Under a strong urge to do away with the office of the Deputy Commissioner, this colonial legacy was given a hurried and hasty burial. Police being an indigenous outgrowth of our collective genius; have emerged as a great favourite of the military government, with a democratic label. Not a day passes without some acts of police highhandedness finding their way to the press.
The murder of two minor girls at Gadap in Karachi or the murder of four civil judges in Sialkot Jail or the recent beating of a DMG officer in Attock or the murder of a boy in Karachi few months back by four policemen after they had committed unnatural offence with him are only some of the manifestations of their unbridled power.
There was an open season on "criminals" in Punjab before the latest military take-over in 1999. Then the recent massacre of score of Shias in Quetta in a mosque attests to the sheer incompetence if not complicity of the police. They have become a threat to public peace and tranquillity.
Two recent incidents indicate the helplessness of the Nazim or the District Safety Commission before the police.
In Narowal, a district to which Chairman, NRB belongs, the Chairman District Safety Commission complaint against two SHOs for misconduct. They in turn filed criminal cases against him. So much for the control of the police by the District Safety Commission.
Another case is of a grade-18 DMG Officer who was beaten black and blue right on the road side and then locked up in the police station where he was humiliated to crouch in the position of a 'Murgha'.
Chapter V of the Order provides for the establishment of District Public Safety Commission. So far some paper has moved but not much has happened on the ground, tall claims of NRB chief notwithstanding.
The method provided for selection of its members is counterproductive because it provides for inviting applications from the public. No self-respecting citizen of an independent mind would like to compromise his/her self-respect by making such a request.
As a result people of dubious credentials are bound to creep in will endeavour to use the police for their nefarious designs and make the entire exercise superfluous.
That is the surest way of sinking the credibility of the National Bureau of Reconstruction, whatever of it has survived the experiment? The method prescribed for selection is so cumbersome that for the last four years it has not been possible to constitute the Commissions, certainly not at the provincial level, and in case they have, they have not become functional for want of time, money, resources and the political will.
Blame is laid by the NRB at the doors of some conspiring bureaucrats, the hangover from colonial era, who he has failed to control out of sheer helplessness.
In para 44 of the Order, the functions assigned to the Public Safety Commission include approval of annual plan, evaluation of delivery of performance targets, encouraging police public co-operation, providing recourse to district police officer, referring the matter to the provincial government and requiring the appropriate authority of the concerned department to take remedial action.
Out of ten functions listed in para 44, only three give powers to the Commission to direct.
In case the direction is disregarded the Commission has no powers except to report to higher authorities. Not only that the Commission is toothless and cannot enforce compliance with its recommendations, its composition is too unwieldy and will detract from an efficient performance of its responsibilities.
Chief Executive's Order 22 of 2002 promulgated on 14.08.2002, otherwise a day of independence, ironically coincided with the enslavement of the people by the police. This piece of social engineering is also known as Police Order 2002. They are under nobody.
District Nazim is totally helpless with the unlamented and unsung departure of the Deputy Commissioner the police has become the judge and the executioners.
A far more effective instrument of disciplining the police would involve some radical departure from the hide bound thinking.
It would be far easier to adopt the Selection Panel provided in para 42 of the Police Order as a substitute to the proposed District Public Safety Commission. The Selection Panel comprises District and Sessions Judge who shall be its chairman and one nominee each of the provincial government and the district government.
Police will have to be districtised and their control including recruitment, postings and transfers will have to be entrusted to the district government. What is so special about the police that it cannot serve under the peoples' representatives of the district government? Unless the police is local and is squarely under the control of the district government, its high handedness will continue.
The positions of DIG and IG Police are as much a colonial baggage as the office of Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner. They should also be buried deep like nuclear waste.
This is the only method of transforming the police from instruments of control to the servants of the people.
The set up created under the much heralded devolution plan has created far too many organisations.
Local Government Ordinance should have been a concise document and different for each province. A uniformity imposed from above detracts from individual circumstances peculiar to each province. The three tiers of Government viz the Federal Government, the Provincial Government and the Local Government have separate and distinct functions.
For one, the Federal Government has nothing to do with the local government or its co-ordination. It is a matter between the Provincial Government and the Local Governments. But the Federal Government could not have kept out of the whole thing, because of its compulsion to seek legitimacy ala Generals Ayub Khn and Ziaul Haq.
To provide a dispute resolution mechanism, Local Government Commission is contemplated under law. It comprises Minister for Local Government and Secretary Local Government besides four other members from the Civil Society including technocrats.
The contraption appears to be an unnecessary addition to a plethora of bureaucratic structures raised under the Local Government Ordinance. It cannot accomplish much by conducting an inquiry, outcome of which may go against the department.
The Commission will have no power to enforce compliance and will have to refer to the Chief Executive of the Province that is the Chief Minister for the same.
In case of conflict resolution between a citizen and the local government or between one local government and another or between the Department of Local Government and any other local council the appropriate forum has to be totally independent with adequate powers to force the department to comply.
An appropriate structure will have to be evolved to replace the proposed Local Government Commission after discussion with the stakeholders, conducting a survey and holding workshops.
Independence of such a body will require people of integrity and independence to be nominated to it.
The people entrusted with the responsibility to select people for the proposed Commission must be imbued with a desire to render selfless public service to make the exercise meaningful. Procedures will have to be carefully worked out to ensure realisation of the expectations.
For an improved co-ordination, basic minimum authority should be vested in the Provincial Governments to ensure that the Local Governments conduct their business in accordance with law and are in compliance with financial discipline.
It would be tempting to allow the Local Governments complete freedom of choice and keep the interference of the Provincial Governments to a minimum. But unfortunately the experience indicates that the Local Governments tend to misuse the autonomy for reasons of history or culture, where not much premium is laid on integrity and merit.
Certain amount of discipline and control is necessary. The powers of the Provincial Governments should be kept to a bare minimum. The power to dissolve the Local Councils must be made very difficult.
There should be a reference by the Local Government Departments to the Commission comprising of independent people whether dissolution on the basis of facts forwarded by the Provincial Government could justify the proposed dissolution.
Horizontal co-ordination should not present much of a problem. We tend to mediate the issues by mutual discussion. The Department of Local Government or the Commission could either resolve problems among the local councils.
Then in order to appear innovative, the NRB has added Citizens Community Boards. Remember Nazimeen-e-Salat (who were to force people to offer prayers in the mosques) a brainchild of a hair brained General employed by the democratic government of Mr Mohammad Nawaz Sharif. Also remember its fate. It was a stillborn scheme.
The proposal to form a Citizens Community Board with a group of non-elected citizens does not appear to be well thought out. It presupposes that education is wide spread and citizens possess the confidence and the consciousness to be able to force the elected bodies to respond to their concerns. It also presupposes the presence of such selfless citizens free of daily worries to constitute such Community Boards.
If there were such enterprising people available in the rural areas, we would not be in such a mess in the first place. There may be some council where formation of such Boards may be possible but in a large part of them it will be a mere pipe dream.
Raising funds by Citizen Community Board is another idea lacking thought content.
The people are very poor indeed and with national poverty having arisen to 33%, thanks to the IMF/World Bank guided stabilisation programme. The rural poverty being much higher, people do not have the wherewithal to be able to contribute to the proposed fund.
It is common experience that when foreign funded projects condition their funding on local contribution, the same is provided through fictional means of labour, and material etc.
A discussion with the practitioners of the local government at the village, district and provincial level will be a good reality check of the proposed scheme. What greater indictment of the scheme can there be than the failure of these bodies to emerge so long after the elections to the councils?
Then there are District Mushawarat Committees for strategic planning. The law provides for a Committee comprising Zila Nazim, Naib Zila Nazim and all Tehsil/Town Nazims. This Committee has been entrusted with the functions involving crystallising a vision of integrated development of the district, prioritising and co-ordinating inter-Tehsil development plans, resolving intra district disputes, mustering resources (which are in serious deficit) for crisis management and finally to set directions for realising economic potential of the district.
The law presupposes a harmonious relationship amongst the members of the Committee although reports in the press indicate that the zila nazim and the naib zila nazim are usually at loggerheads, with the latter reduced to a cipher by the district nazim.
Such a situation wherever it obtains would undermine the basic purpose of the law. Similarly, other nazims may not see eye to eye with each other or with the zila nazim. Under such circumstances even the holding of meetings would appear a doubtful proposition. More likely than not, the meetings will not take place, if only to avoid acrimony.
Far more important than the constitution of the Committee are its powers. Lacking powers for enforcement, any deliberations or discussions will become an exercise not worthy of the paper they are written on. Besides, why should independent tehsil committees and town committees accept the recommendations of Mushawarat committees? This will amount to undermining the democratic right of a tehsil or a town committee.
Dictation by Mushawarat Committee, which will be dominated by the Chairman, that is the zila nazim, will not enjoy wider support. The entire gamut of issues arising out of this creation based on inexperience of the creators will have to be gone over for a meaningful arrangement.
A plethora of committees does not guarantee good governance. Less the better. A large number of committees introduced into the law is a recipe for stalemate. A great deal of discussion with the stakeholders is necessary before policy can be made.
The continued existence of the district governments is at risk unless the Federal Government provides guarantees to their continued existence. In the absence of a constitutional safeguard obligating the provincial governments to hold regular elections and not to allow powers to the provincial government to suspend or supersede the local councils, their survival would be on very shaky grounds, at best.
An honest appraisal of the law is in order. There is no going back on devolution, one hopes. Since the Government is under no compulsion to seek legitimacy, that objective having been realised through induction of 'genuine' democracy, a sincere and honest effort at devolution must be made.
All the provinces should be involved in the exercise and encouraged to constitute Commissions of competent and honest people of good public standing to evolve a workable system for the purpose.
It is time that we admitted that the country belonged to 148 million people of Pakistan, and not to a coterie of defenders of our borders, more internal than external.