Don’t say the P word: Where is the chatter on new provinces coming from?

One solution is perhaps local governments

Have you wondered why there has recently been some talk on the creation of new provinces in Pakistan? You would have heard some people call them ‘administrative units’ instead of ‘province’ perhaps to avoid inducing the anxiety that seems to always accompany the P word.

Discussing the topic is a minefield. Mainstream ruling political parties have either been lukewarm or hostile to the suggestion of change. Some of the avoidant ones have paid it years of lip service, such as on the Hazara and South Punjab provinces, and others have expressed outright hostility over the suggestion that Karachi city should be a province on its own.

Given the chatter, however, and timing, it would not be wrong to wager a guess that the debate must have originated from outside the political class, for the parties would not want to touch it. Their comments on being unaware of any official considerations on the matter on television talk shows reveal as much. The only two people on screen who’ve been cited as sources for this proposal so far are Mian Mehmood Amir, the founder and chairman of the Punjab group, and SM Tanveer, a prominent industrialist. Both of them are successful and renowned businessmen. SM Tanveer went a step further to claim to have the Army chief’s tacit support on the matter.
Emotions and politicking aside, is there any merit to the idea? Allow me to present a case.

Pakistan’s Constitution says if you want to carve out a province from another, two-thirds of the original province’s lawmakers would have approve it. This rule makes talking about new provinces an impractical debate. You would simply require buy-in from too many political actors, not to mention how expensive it would be to get it actually happening. There are immense fiscal and administrative costs associated with raising a government for an entirely new province.
You could argue that the 26th Amendment to the Constitution was similarly passed with those numbers, but the stakes weren’t nearly as high in that case. The creation of new provinces means the reorganization of political power in Pakistan. This is far too big an ask to create consensus in a collaborationist regime which is otherwise patched together with precious little but the goal to ensure the political suppression of a single person.

What then might be the cause of this conversation popping up out of nowhere on mainstream media, with anchors and politicians equally confused on the matter?

One possibility is that the glue has placed certain demands on the political class, and this is a way of starting high to settle low. It is well known that the previous Army chief as well as the current one have expressed their discontent over the National Finance Commission’s share of the provinces that leaves the Federation with less than it needs. The provinces argue that if the Federation wrapped up its functions that have been devolved under the 18th Amendment to the province, shedding those departments could create the fiscal breathing space it wants.

On the other hand, one argument is that the rationale for this proposed split is that the country isn’t being governed as it should be. The provincial capitals have turned into fiefdoms with cities and areas farther away from these islands of power which are not getting their due share of development. This is true, but would creating more provinces not merely serve to create more provincial capitals with the areas still left farther out once again at the mercy of the Chief Minister’s office? Not only is this logic not sound, there are two arguments against it even if it is assumed to be:
The most well-governed province in Pakistan is actually its largest one.

Splitting four provinces into 20 provinces would mean the creation of 16 more provincial assemblies, bureaucracies, and all the administrative and financial overheads involved with such an undertaking. Is that really the decision to take if you want to divert resources to when your country is suffering from climate disaster and economic meltdown?
If the intention is to fix governance issues that emerge from the centralization of power at the CM office, then the solution is to bring back the Local Government System of 2001 (introduced by Musharraf), under which district governments headed by Nazims had all the authority needed to carry out purely developmental functions in their areas. This authority was in fact passed down to the UC level. However, the political class resisted this idea tooth and nail and had it wrapped up as soon as its patron, former President Musharraf, resigned.
The logic for empowered local governments is sound. This means decentralizing development to the lowest tier of political representation and administration. There is also an existing blueprint which has been tried and tested, and those who benefitted from that testing period still present in the political system and are supportive of it (aka the former District Nazims). These people can be used to create a bipartisan group of buy-ins to push the idea through the corridors of the political class.
If the powers that be actually want to solve the governance crisis and this isn’t a cover for other ulterior motives, then the answer is straightforward: Restore the Local Government System of 2001 and give it constitutional protection, anything else is misguided at best and a smokescreen at worst.