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As a country we have taken over 60 years to decide about federal and provincial subjects and do away with the controversial concurrent list.
As per the federal cabinet decision, July 1 will be celebrated as the 'National Day of Provincial Autonomy' when at least on paper our provinces will be able to exercise provincial autonomy.
This Tuesday the federal cabinet approved the third and final phase of the devolution. In total the federal government has devolved 17 ministries to the provinces. After July 1 there will be no more concurrent list and henceforth, the federal government will control only five subjects — finance, defence, foreign affairs, communications and revenue.
The devolved ministries are: education, social welfare and special education, tourism, special initiatives, population planning, local government and rural development, Zakat and Ushr, youth affairs, livestock and dairy development, culture, food and agriculture, sports, women development, minorities' affairs, labour and manpower, environment, and health.
The devolution took place under the18th amendment. Since its passage in April 2010 from the parliament, the government has been presenting it as one of its major achievements. But just for record's sake, the constitutional amendment was result of efforts put in by an All Parties Committee to revive the original 1973 constitution.
Time has come to implement the 18th amendment by giving the provinces financial and administrative control of the devolved ministries. But if one goes by the initial hiccups the provinces are facing in getting the new law implemented; controversies surrounding specifics of its clauses, the implementation looks like a distant dream.
This week when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was all praise for the members of the Implementation Commission for successfully implementing the 18th amendment, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif wrote a letter to him, calling for a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) to resolve issues pertaining to the amendment.
The Punjab government has expressed reservations over the federal government's unwillingness to transfer assets of the devolved ministries. At a press conference on Wednesday, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah argued that once a provincial government has been given the right of legislation over a certain subject, its executive authority automatically stands transferred. He referred to the Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Lahore and Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) which, even after the devolution of health and food and agriculture ministries, are still with the federal government. He said there were many such cases.Similar complaints have also started pouring in from other provincial governments, fuming over the retention of various functions of the devolved ministries and divisions. They may lock horns with the federal government in the coming days. They also complain that while ministries have been devolved along with their employees, a number of their functions on one pretext or other have been kept with the Cabinet, Planning or the Inter-Provincial Coordination divisions.
Worldwide, devolution in a democratic dispensation means delegating powers to local leadership for better functioning of the state. It ensures involvement of people in the decision making at local level. But for that a fully functional and operative local government system is a must. In the absence of an effective local government system, the devolution will not be able to make any difference in the country.
No kudos for the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, but he did manage to put in place a fairly good local government system. From district to tehsil and then down to union council, directly elected people were responsible for public services in their respective constituencies.
Under the Musharraf regime, two local government elections were held in 2002 and 2006. However, when the present set up took over in March 2008, provincial governments started creating problems for districts governments – majority of the district and tehsil nazims belonged to PML-Q and their coalition partners.
Instead of improving upon the already established local bodies that definitely had some grey areas, the provincial governments spent their energies in pinning them down – and eventually succeeded.
Currently, we don't have local governments. None of the provincial governments looks interested in hold local government elections anytime soon. Every province has its own excuse for delaying elections.
President Asif Ali Zardari had said 2011 would be the year of local bodies' elections, but considering ongoing political developments, it looks unlikely. One can only hope that our political parties do understand importance of local governments. No democracy can work without local bodies.
