Devolution and Demarcation of Roles Presentation by Shah

Devolution and Demarcation of Roles Presentation by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, MNA and former Nazim, Multan District January 29, 2003

Issues as faced by the implementers 1 Ground realities v Over centralisation and concentration of political power v Lack of proper consultative process v Lack of community participation/ ownership v Whimsical allocation of resources leading to lopsided development v Poor delivery of services v Lack of proper checks and balances promoting discretion and corruption v Weak institutions v Poor governance leading to frustration and dissatisfaction

2. Enthusiastic reception v Devolution plan was generally well received v Broad agreement amongst the stakeholders of it being a step in the right direction v Plan incorporated all the ingredients for good governance v Enthusiastic response of the ordinary citizen over shadowed the reservations of various political parties v Participation and turn out in the local government elections was encouraging

3. Elections v Election at the councillor and union council level were generally free, fair and transparent v Election to the office of Tehsil Nazim and in particular District Nazim were closely monitored and influenced to keep the undesirables out and to achieve positive (desirable) results

4. Danger of politicisation v Non-party basis elections were held to avoid politicisation of local government institutions and keep them service oriented v Assurances given that local government institutions will not be for presidential elections were not kept v Local governments administrative structure and financial resources were not only used in the presidential referendum, they have been used in the recently held bye-elections

6. Concept of parallelism v As opposed to the hierarchical approach the devolution plan has introduced the concept of parallelism that is causing confusion, thus compromising the writ of the government

7. Financial resources not in conformity with responsibilities v Financial resources at the disposal of each tier of local government not in line with the responsibilities assigned to it. v By law no district government can present a deficit budget. v Scope of local resource mobilisation limited. v Lack of trained budget, finance and account officers. v District administration top heavy, a uniformula has been adopted across the board, completely ignoring the question of sustainability. v Development funds being thinly distributed leaving limited scope for mega-projects at the district level. v Political considerations taking precedence over needs in the allocation of development funds.

8. Law and order v District Nazim is responsible for law and order at the district level but his role/relationship vis-à-vis the D. P. O. is vague. v District Nazim can issue executive orders to the D. P. O. for law and order but has no mechanism to insure implementation. v District public safety commission non-functional

9. Frustration of councillors destabilising the system v After having elected the district/Tehsil nazims the councillors are feeling redundant, pressure of public expectations, seeing no effective role for themselves is giving rise to frustration that is being expressed through motions of no confidence against Nazims and Naib-nazims

10. Postings and transfers: a source of conflict v Postings and transfers of government functionaries have become a major source of conflict between the provincial governments and the district governments, and within the district governments between various tiers as well as between the political and civil arm of the district government. This conflict is delaying implementation, utilization of resources and affecting the quality of administration

11. Tension between local governments and legislators 1. Government decision to allocate development funds to legislators is a reflection of the old mind-set and has initiated a turf war between the local governments and the provincial governments. v It will encourage a tendency to earmark block allocations at the federal and the provincial level making discretionary allocations possible once again. v Provincial finance commission and district planning will become in effective