Confusion prevails: After LB polls, Balochistan wonders what to do next

With mayoral elections around the corner, bureaucrats, ministers cling to power.

ISLAMABAD:

Balochistan was successful in setting an example for the rest of the provinces by conducting local bodies elections, which was no easy feat considering the law and order situation and the limited time for preparation.

However, the provincial government now has to decide how it will transfer financial and administrative powers to the local governments, revealed Jan Buledi, the Balochistan government spokesman.

He had earlier said the provincial government will not restore any of the past local bodies system introduced by the two former military rulers, General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf. “We will transfer meaningful powers to the local bodies institutions and new laws will be enacted by the provincial assembly after receiving reports by a special committee entrusted with the task. We will bring a new system that will suit our people,” he had explained. But no one knows what this new system will entail.

Mayoral polls and elections for chairmen of municipal committees, district committees and union councils are about to be initiated in the province. However, there is no clear plan for the transfer of power to the elected local governments.

The political parties in Balochistan have apprehensions that the provincial government would not transfer administrative and financial powers to the local bodies, and provincial ministers, too, are uncertain about the role to be entrusted to the former.



Khalid Langove, the provincial adviser on finance said, “It is not decided as to what role local governments will play after the installation of the mayors and chairmen next month.”

But the political parties who fared well in the local government elections have a clear plan of responsibilities and how the province should be governed. “The local bodies should be given all the powers including revenue generation and judicial powers to decide all issues, including petty ones,” demanded Muhammad Akram Shah, the central secretary-general of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).

“PkMAP will demand taxation from civic bodies on the district level,” he emphasised. “Members of the provincial and national assemblies should concentrate on lawmaking and leave the rest to the local governments,” he added.

The vice-president of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) Sajid Tareen, too, is unaware of the authority the elected representatives will be entrusted with.

Meanwhile, transfer of power is another issue that has sparked controversy. Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo, the acting president of the Balochistan-ruling National Party (NP), recently told the media that the provincial cabinet is toothless, unable to exercise any authority. “We have been given the right to rule the province but we are denied power,” said Bizenjo, whose party’s leader, Dr Abdul Malik, is the Balochistan chief minister.

Jan Buledi, who is also an NP leader, clarified: “Powers have been distributed among the ministers and the provincial bureaucracy equally. The ministers should refrain from encroaching on the authority of the secretaries, commissioners and other officers.”

The province is being run by the bureaucracy headed by the Punjab chief secretary, claimed a provincial government official. NP is a coalition partner of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N and Dr Malik would like to follow Punjab in terms of distribution of power vis-a-vis the local governments, he told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity. “It may cause difficulties for Punjab if the local governments in Balochistan are given immense powers.”

BNP-M leader Sajid Tareen said the provincial governments in all the four provinces are not willing to share their powers with the local bodies. “This is why provincial governments have been refusing to hold the local bodies’ polls. Balochistan only held the elections because of the tremendous pressure by the Supreme Court,” he maintained.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2013.