Under 18th Amendment: Push to assign depts where they belong

About 17 ministries were devolved to provinces while some key ministries were re-established in 2011

ISLAMABAD: Almost eight years after the passage of the 18^th Amendment, the cabinet division has written a letter to the federal ministries asking them to submit proposals for allocation of departments that fall under their domain.

The matter of failure in implementing the 18th Amendment in letter and spirit has been widely discussed during the five years of the current government, especially by the opposition.

The government has been blamed for dragging its feet over issues that were in urgent need of resolution with regard to devolution at the federal and provincial levels.



Now, the cabinet division has surprised many by writing a letter seeking proposals from ministries and divisions in the federal government whether they wanted the departments previously assigned to them in larger “public interest.”
After the devolution, about 17 ministries were devolved to provinces but some key ministries were re-established in 2011 and onwards that included ministries of health, education, climate change, human rights, population and welfare, food and agriculture and a few others.

During the implementation of the plan, many subjects were transferred to non-relevant ministries in haste, especially the health and education ministries. Many important programmes suffered greatly due to the poorly-executed plan.
The cabinet division’s letter was issued after approval of the federal cabinet and is a clear manifestation of the flaws in the implementation of the devolution, which many experts have termed a hasty move without proper planning.
The cabinet division has started receiving proposals from ministries and also initiating further action on the said demands.

On March 29, it notified transfer of National College of Arts, Lahore and Rawalpindi, and Pakistan Chairs Abroad with selection of scholars to the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. Interestingly, right after the devolution these subjects were transferred to the cabinet division.
Similarly, several other subjects of health and education are with other ministries, including foreign office and Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination. Pakistan Chairs Abroad programme has about nine chairs in different foreign universities and are all lying vacant for the last few years.

Interviews were recently conducted for probable candidates and then three names were shortlisted against each seat and sent to the prime minister. The Higher Education Commission is also interested in taking these chairs back.
One of the senior officials of the cabinet division told The Express Tribune that the decision was taken to facilitate the ministries which deserved the right departments and programmes and not to reverse the 18th Amendment.
The Senate in 2015 formed a Functional Committee on Devolution, which visited four provincial capitals during three years where it came across plenty of issues, including gas royalty, water etc, that the federal government has yet to hand over.
“We tried our best to do something to help provinces but there is a lot that needs to be done about proper implementation of devolution,” said Senator Mir Kabeer, the chairperson of the committee.



He has also been blaming the provincial governments for being least interested in implementing the devolution.
His claim can be gauged by the fact that no province, including the federal government, has done anything to move forward in implementing the law for free and compulsory education for children between the ages of five and 16.

The Pakistan Peoples Party in 2012 had formed a Cabinet Committee on Restructuring, but only three meetings could be held and the last meeting of the body was held in 2015 chaired by former finance minister Ishaq Dar. Since then no meeting has been held and the matter of implementation of devolution has been set aside.
Even the federal government has been dragging its feet over several issues and it was only in April that the PM issued a notification regarding the regularisation of over 38,000 employees, who were facing uncertainty since 2010, in provinces.