An outline of historical perspective of local government system in Pakistan

The local government system of Pakistan is much older than its independence, as it was inherited by the British’s East India Company in 1688 with the establishment of first municipal corporation set-up in Madras. Similarly, many related Acts were followed; Conservancy Acts 1842, Municipal Act 1867, Lord Ripon’s Resolution on Local Self-government 1882, Decentralization Commission 1907, Simon Commission 1925, and the Government of India Act 1935. The common feature of all these kinds of local governments was that these were under severe bureaucratic control.

Even after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the local government system has not been given considerable attention by the national government. Their common weaknesses include lacking representative character and their weak financial conditions lacking sound financial bases.

Basic Democracies 1959-69: After 1947, the first attempt to provide institutional framework was made by the then President Ayub Khan in 1959 called Basic Democracies (BD). It was a hierarchy of four linked tiers. The Union Council was the lowest of all, comprised of Basic Democrats, elected through adult franchise. Whereas, some members of other tiers were elected indirectly; while, some others were elected by the government having officials as Chairmen.

Only some physical targets were achieved through this system because of inherited weaknesses like severe bureaucratic control by “controlling authority”, corruption, political bribery etc. It was built on the idea of “controlled democracy” where people participation was limited to choosing a representative from amongst themselves. Due to concentrated authority and strong hierarchy, there was no involvement of rural masses in planning and implementation.

Local Government Ordinance 1972 of Bhutto’s Democratic Era: Although, a new local government system was organized in this era, but failed to operate due to no elections. The official administrators were running the local institutions from 1971-1979. Masses were provided no participation and justice where corrupt Deputy Commissioners had no system of accountability.

Revision of Local Government by General Zia-ul- Haq 1979-1984: Under this system, two tier system of rural and three types of urban local government structures were introduced in four provinces of the country. A Chairman and a Vice Chairman was elected from among the councilors by them. The Chairman was the executive head of the local council.

The main weaknesses of the system included the centralization, lack of coordination between Union and District Councils and with national building departments like agriculture, health, and education. Moreover, the financial bases, planning, and implementation were also feeble.

Local Government during Four Consecutive Democratic Governments 1985-1998: The local body politics was transplanted to national and provincial levels during this era. The functions previously performed by local representatives were taken over by MNAs and MPAs. Local level development allocations were carried out by federal parliamentarians and the clash of interests between local and provincial tiers resulted in the suspension of local bodies between 1993 and 1998.

The National Reconstruction Bureau of Musharraf Military Regime: After the 1999 coup by General Pervez Musharraf, the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) was established. It introduced a “devolution plan” to restructure the political and service structures. The eminent features of the program were: empowerment of citizens; decentralization of administrative authority; diffusion of power authority nexus for distribution of financial resources to provincial and local governments and authority. The Local Government Ordinance was promulgated by each Provincial Government .

This historical overview of the local governments system in Pakistan introduced by successive military and democratic government shows that there is no dearth of policies and plans for the local government system. What is needed is that the policies and plans should be realistic and amended according to the needs of the time. Misgovernance is the most unfortunate impediment in the way of people’s liberation and provision of justice. Practices like corruption, centralization, lack of accountably of political leaders to the people, lack of institutional checks on office holders should be mitigated and abolished consequently. Moreover, skills development of the local people and their education, proper and timely allocation of funds, and financial accountability should be introduced. The policy making process and implementation should be linked to each other with a responsive feed-back loop.

Note: All the references in this paper are taken from the paper “The Historcial Perspective of the Local Government in Pakistan: Learning from the Past”, written by Najeebullah Khan and Bahadar Shah.