Challenges and reforms: Call for empowerment to local governments

Conference discusses financial, policy issues facing the LG system.

ISLAMABAD: The need for grass-root level democracy, fiscal empowerment and balancing national, provincial and local priorities were stressed at an event focused on empowering the local government system on Wednesday.

The Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) hosted the event titled ‘Devolution of power to local governments: challenges and reforms’ at a local hotel on Wednesday.



IPRI President Ambassador Sohail Amin stressed on the importance of delegating power to local governments.

“We need to overcome the challenges of devolution of power and avoid factors that trigger controversy between local and provincial governments,” he said.

Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, the chief guest at the event, said “Local government is the third tier of any nation. Unfortunately, there have been disruptions in our democratic system.”

“Provincial governments should deal with making laws and elected members of local governments should have control to enforce them,” he added.

Policy experts addressed various aspects of devolution of power to the local governments, such as local level democracy; fiscal empowerment of local governments; and balancing the responsibilities of national, provincial and local governments.

Dr Ishtiaq Choudhr, head of the peace and conflict studies department at the National Defence University, spoke on grass-root level democracy.

“A local government system is not just the base of democracy, but it is a crucial element in the proper functioning of government in a political system,” he said.



“We need a ruthless and impartial analysis of why we have not been able to establish an effective local government system. One of the reasons why our country is not able to ensure power to local government is because every new government dismantles the previous government’s system,” he said.

Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment CEO Azhar Bashir Malik presented his argument on fiscal empowerment of local governments.

“Localisation is not a gamble, but a no-regret system,” he said.

He added that the criteria for financial allocation from federal to provincial governments are based on the principle of poverty and underdevelopment. He said the same notion should be applied to allocating resources from the provinces to district governments.

Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination Secretary Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry presented on balancing national, provincial and local responsibilities. He highlighted that the local governments are not embedded in the Constitution.

“It is rather unfortunate that not a single political party in the country has stressed on the need for a local government system or made efforts to empower them,” he said.

The conference was chaired by MNA Daniyal Aziz, who said that it is important to separate reality from perceptions.

“We have millions of organisations, departments and ministries, but the basic issues are still unaddressed. There are pointless ministries such as the one for harmony. We cannot afford such ministries,” he stressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2015.