People not satisfied with services provided by local governments

A large number of people are not satisfied with the services provided by local governments, and referred to issues of access and quality demanding why they do not use government education and health facilities, according to a national survey report, titled 'The Local Government System: Citizens Perceptions and Preferences'.
Based on the results of the survey, it argued that the local government reforms promulgated by the Musharraf government in 2001 did not meet their stated objectives, terms of strengthening governance or improving the delivery of essential services.
The report has been jointly prepared by 'District That Work' (DTW), a project of 'Urban Institute' and supported by USAID, and ACNielsen Pakistan, which was released recently. ACNielsen Pakistan conducted the survey, which was based on a sample of 4002 nationally and provincially representative households across the country.
The report said that in education, among families with children in government schools, as many as one-quarter of the survey respondents identified problems with infrastructure, books, and furniture. In health, similarly, a quarter of the respondents said that medical staff was unavailable and more than a third said that medicines were unavailable, it said.
"Also, with household services, the survey responses show serious problems of coverage and quality throughout Punjab. There are still a large number of people without access to water from improved sources, instead relying on surface water and unprotected wells. More than one-third of urban households does not have access to basic sanitation, sewerage/drainage and solid waste collection. The majority of citizens in Punjab are concerned about waterborne diseases in their drinking water; and they rate their towns and cities as dirty, and most saw them as susceptible to flooding because of poor drainage. And many of the policy reforms carried out in this decade have failed on this account, because of local implementation," the report added.
The authors of the report observed that the existing provincial/district/tehsil division of functions is not working; as is often the case when several levels of government have overlapping responsibilities some issues get sidelined. Tehsils are not able to keep up with citizen demand for improved household services in their urban places, much less for the dispersed rural population, but the district sees this as a tehsil responsibility and does not make investments in this sector. "Policy makers would have to revisit this issue in deciding on the distribution of functions and resources between different levels of government," the report suggested.
According to the report, major stakeholders in the policy debate, particularly the senior bureaucrats, see failure of local government reforms due to lack of political accountability. This argument ignores one vital fact that none of the provisions for ensuring the accountability, transparency and responsiveness of local elected was implemented under the Musharraf government. It is not possible to assess the success or failure of political accountability when these provisions were never implemented. It also ignores an inconvenient issue, that there were, and continue to operate, very strong constraints to effective democratic governance across the board, at all levels of government.
On the reversal of the existing local government system, it said from the viewpoint of citizens, there is no prima facie case for taking back control of local affairs to the provinces on the justification that they are more accountable, transparent or responsive. "In fact, on questions of access, they fare much worse than local governments. Results are clear that citizens want to use mechanisms of political representation (elected councils) to interact with their local governments. A majority of citizens are generally critical of the lack of responsiveness of bureaucrats," it added. In the survey, citizens were critical of corruption in local governments, whether in relation to small bribes for services or corruption in contracting. "Corruption is systemic, involving both elected officials and civil servants. Small scale corruption in service delivery is tolerated by senior bureaucrats and elected officials, who have opportunities for large-scale corruption in contracting, supply of medicines, purchase of desks and books," the report observed.
It also observed that the large-scale corruption in districts and tehsils operates through the distribution of budgets among nazims and council members, who often use their quotas for small infrastructure projects instead of purchasing inputs to improve social services. "Without improvements in accountability and transparency, widespread corruption in local government will continue unabated and service coverage and quality will not be substantially improved," it added.
The report pointed out that some stakeholders had put forward the idea of holding local government elections immediately, to readjust the political balance. "This would end the corruption, as the new councils elected will have the same opportunities for graft as the old ones; without new arrangements to promote transparency and accountability and to reduce impunity, the institutional incentives for corrupt acts will remain," it added.
It also pointed out that more general issue that emerges from the survey findings is the confusion about roles. The responses to questions about the current division of responsibility for service delivery showed a wide dispersion. To some extent, this probably reflects limited knowledge about the structure and workings of government, especially among people with low levels of formal education. But it also reflects the overlapping roles and responsibilities between federal, provincial and local governments. The federal government continues to operate vertical programs in education and health, which override both districts and provinces and cause problems of accountability. The provinces should remove this discrepancy so that implementation is under effective control of the responsible local government, it added.