Would relief efforts have benefited from nazims?

Questions raised about bureaucrats not having same eagerness to serve the public that people’s representatives did.

LAHORE: The flood relief effort would have been far more effective and efficient if the local government system headed by nazims was still in place, according to opposition parties in the Punjab.

Members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Jamaat-i-Islami, Tehrik-i-Insaf and Pakistan Peoples Party all told The Express Tribune that they felt a local bodies system beats an administration led by bureaucrats because public representatives are more accountable to local populations.

But a Punjab government spokesman rejected this, saying that the nazims were in place during the last major natural disaster to hit Pakistan, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and had not played a significant role in relief efforts.

Mohsin Leghari, MPA of the PML-Q, said having a nazim and 12 other representatives in each union council – as prescribed in the previous local bodies system introduced in 2001 by former military ruler General (retired) Pervez Musharraf – would mean the government had 13 “focal persons” in each area who knew local populations and could direct relief efforts.

“The current system is delivering nothing,” said Leghari, who has been in the flood-hit areas in South Punjab for the last three weeks.

He said that NGOs and provincial government officials, not knowing the people they were supposed to help, had on occasion mistakenly distributed relief goods to the wrong people. “Poor people living in areas not hit by floods are trying to collect relief goods from the flooded areas,” he said.

This problem would not arise if nazims were around since they would know their constituents, he said.

He slammed Chief Minsiter Shahbaz Sharif, saying his tour of the flooded areas was distracting from relief work. “The government officials are busy arranging protocol and security for the chief minister,” he said. “They are not bothered about the victims.”

Punjab government spokesman Pervez Rasheed said the current system was more or less the same as the previous one, except it did not have nazims. He said the district governments did not have any special powers which would make them any better at disaster management than the provincial government.

“The nazim system was intact in 2005 when the earthquake hit Pakistan, but the then government did not use this system and instead established three new organisations for rescue and relief,” Rasheed said. Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaqat Baloch said the local bodies would have served the flood victims better. “Local leaders are closer to the people than federal or provincial level leaders. The nazims would have better access in the local community, thus they would be able to identify the real problems in their union councils and help the government and non-government organisations. The current system is not delivering in urban areas, not in normal circumstances, not in special situations like floods. It is a failed system.”

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf information secretary Umar Sarfraz Cheema said the government was afraid of transferring powers to local bodies. He said local bodies were less corrupt than provincial governments. “The current leaders do not want a system that will stop their corruption. They will never favour a local bodies system,” he said.

PPP leader Tanveer Ashraf Kaira, who is also the Punjab finance minister, said he favoured a local bodies system as the public would get more attention from nazims.

PPP Punjab deputy secretary general Usman Saleem said bureaucrats did not have the same eagerness to serve the public that the people’s representatives did. He said the PPP had always been in favour of restoring the local bodies system.

The local bodies were dissolved in February. The federal and provincial governments have told the courts they will amend the laws governing these and then hold elections within three months, but they have yet to notify any such amendments.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2010.