DTCE, UNDP jointly launch Social Audit: majority of respondents favours continuation of LG system

The Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE) and UNDP jointly launched the Social Audit of Local Governance and Delivery of Public Services 2009-10 on Tuesday to evaluate the efficacy of the system from 2005-09. According to the survey, majority of respondents were in favour of the continuation of the local government system.
At least 75.5 per cent of household were in favour of voting in next local government polls. Social Audit 2009-10 is predominantly a survey conducted to measure the state-citizen relationship and the provision of social services under the local government system during 2005-09. It presents views of local elected representatives and government officials on the delivery of public services.
The Social Audit 2009/10 covered 12,000 households from 100 sample union councils, 71 tehsils/towns and 21 districts in all four provinces. The respondents included both women and men (adult) representing a household. Among the total respondents 43.9 percent were women and 94 percent household heads were male.
More than half (58 percent) of the heads of households had some kind of formal education including about 7 percent having graduate or postgraduate degrees. By occupation 22.4 percent households' heads were unskilled; 20.8 percent were in agriculture, whereas 17.7 percent were in the occupation of business/self-employed. The Social Audit 2009/10 findings show that 31.2 percent households were in 'very vulnerable' category, whereas 42.9 percent were 'vulnerable'.
The survey shows an overall good performance of local governance system as the analysis and results of the survey will hopefully give a yardstick to the people about the past and present state of affairs in local governments. It will also provide in-put to the decision-makers and governments on the need and structure of local governments that serves the people at grassroots level.
A majority of the household respondents (55.7 percent) in 2009/10 survey favoured the continuation of the local government system, as high proportion of population favoured it in Punjab and Sindh. In NWFP and Balochistan, however, the proportion of respondents who were not in favour was a little higher than those who favoured.
Of the government officials interviewed, 60 percent to 80 percent favoured continuation of the local government system. A majority of DCOs (70 percent) also said that they were in favour of continuation of the local government system. A majority of responses from vulnerable groups also showed willingness to vote in the next local council elections. Negligible proportions (1.9 percent) of respondents were indifferent towards the issue of voting in the next local government elections.
The single biggest problem, as perceived by all households, was gas supply, followed by sewerage and sanitation and water supply. Electricity supply, due to frequent and long hours of load-shedding was also cited as a key problem. A majority of the households said that no service had improved while a fifth of the households said that roads displayed marked improvement.
While, as a whole, one third of the households said that no services worsened during the past four years. In the overall socio-economic context almost half of the respondents (49.3 percent) felt that inflation was a severe problem, followed by unemployment (32.8 percent) and load-shedding (10.7 percent).
The level of satisfaction with the union councils has slightly risen to 33.8 percent in 2009/10 from 30.5 percent in 2004, whereas in 2002, expectations about the union councils (UCs) were the same as 31 percent of the households said these UCs would be better than those in the previous system.
In 2009/10, about 12 percent said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied and 9 percent said they did not know or refused to answer the question. About one-fourth of very vulnerable respondents and one-third of vulnerable households were satisfied with the performance of union councils during the past four years.
One-quarter of the households contacted a union council member, with relatively higher proportions in Balochistan and NWFP, whereas in 2004, about the same ratio, 24.6 percent of male respondents and 12.5 percent of female respondents, reported a household contact with a union council member, in 2002, the level of contact was, however, low as 21 percent of male respondents and 10 percent female respondents reported a household contact with a. union council member.
Addressing on this occasion DTCE Chairman Daniyal Aziz said during the past seven years from December 31, 2003 till the passage of 18th Amendment the entire political parties were in favour of an effective and empowered Local Governance system in Pakistan, which, he said, is not a small achievement.
He said that the long and complex test is not over, there are a lot of ifs and buts and dark spaces are associated with the relation to federation and provinces. He said the real problem lies with provincial autonomy and not with local governance.
"Devolution is not an issue related to local government. Devolution of powers is a process which needs to move ahead over time. Though the local government system was opposed by the mainstream parties, all of them supported it in the 18th Amendment, Daniyal added.
Speaking on the occasion, UNDP Country Director Toshihiro Tanaka said that though there are many other means of evaluation and analysis, it is believed that the social audit serves as a unique and powerful tool to promote democratic and participatory governance as well as human rights based approach by systematically collecting voices of citizens, who are the rights holders, to interact with the policy-makers, local government officials and service providers. He said all findings of the social audit are communicated to the general public, policy-makers, elected representatives and civil society.