Finally, some love for local govts

Fawad Chaudhry may have been in the limelight for quite a few wrong reasons lately. Now and then, it has seemed controversy has a hard time trying not to chase the minister of science and technology.

Be that as it may, it is heartening to see a key Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf figure finally focus on a vital facet of democracy that both it and the governments that came before it have been all too eager to ignore. Fawad’s letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan may not have much to do with the portfolio he has been assigned, but the issue of local governments is one the party must solve if it wants to deliver its promise of good governance.

The minister, in his letter, pointed out that provincial authorities’ failure to devolve authority to local government representatives  was not only a clear cut violation of Article 140 of the Constitution but a major cause of prevalent jadedness among citizens across the country. The ‘grossest violation’, he noted, was the ‘inequitable distribution of funds among districts’. “A strong federation demands an equitable division of resources among the provinces and thus to district level,” he stressed.

While Fawad may not always enjoy the best public perception – and while critics may feel some skepticism about his real intentions given the mention of PTI’s PML-N rival Shahbaz Sharif in the letter – the local government problem is one larger than any political point-scoring.

In all functional democracies and even many not-so-functional ones, local representatives are crucial cogs of governance. In effect, they provide citizens a direct link to governments they elect and the only pathway to ensuring the system responds to the ground level problems they face.

More importantly, local governments also serve as incubators for future leaders and inject all parties, not just the ones in power, with the new blood they need in order to keep relevant with changing public sensibilities.

Here’s hoping Premier Imran, for once, pays attention to concerns raised by Fawad.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2020.

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