THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN PAKISTAN:

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

ABSTRACT

Pakistan inherited the local government system from the British. Pakistan must have learned to
customize it with local demands but it did not happen because it has a poor track record of
democracy with long military rule. Military always erected the local governments, first in 1959,
then in 1979 and now the current devolution plan 2000. Under the previous local government
systems, the provinces administered the districts & tehsils through the bureaucracy, with absence
of democracy and accountability at local level. However, scenario has changed with the current
system due to several global changes and demands emanating from them. The new system
brought mega changes showing high levels of learning. The powers has been devolved at local
level where elected bodies now ensure the planning and development in accordance with the local
needs; monitor the functioning of local administrations thereby making them accountable to the
representatives and general public. Despite the fact that the present government has taken mega
steps in improving the administrative structure, especially at local level, however, there are
uncertainties about the expectations from the new System, as it is once again introduced by the
Military regime. In such scenario, there are reservations about the successful implementation of
the system in the long term.

INTRODUCTION

Organizations are the learning entities (Hicks and Gullett, 1976) so are the local government
organizations because updating is the pre- requisite for the competitive survival of any
organizational unit. Learning process in the Pakistan’s local government system is 46 years old
stretching from the first system of 1959 to the present LG 2001. Research, however, indicates low
levels of learning among different stakeholders in the local government system (see for example,
Khan, 2004; Zaman, 2002). Having said that, LG 2001 is a bold effort to kick-start high levels of
learning by introducing mega-changes both in the structure and functioning of the system. Almost
all the stakeholders in the local government system (govt officers, representatives and citizens)
have to learn the delicacies of the new system so that a different organizational behavior could be
observed. Changed organizational behavior requires organizational learning. (Luthans, 2002)
notes “learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior.” Burns (1995) defines ‘behavioral
change’ as including both observable and internal processes such as ‘thinking, attitudes and
emotions.” Hicks and Gullett (1976) extend “learning process profoundly affects one’s
personality including habits, knowledge and personal and cultural values.”

Although, every next local government system was intended to address the weaknesses of the
predecessor, the learning process always remained ‘single-loop learning.’ This learning is
“associated with routine learning … and organization learns without significant change in basic
assumptions (Luthans, 2002).” LG 2001 however, came with broader visions of brining change at
local level by giving power at the grass roots to decide and implement change with authority.
This paper attempts to analyze the vicissitudes of local government system in Pakistan with focus
on how did learning take place? What was learned, what were the barriers? And finally how
learning should be value-added?

LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS IN PAKISTAN

The Local governments have existed in the Indian subcontinent for many centuries, with the first
municipal corporation set-up in Madras in1688 by the East India Company, through the
Conservancy Act 1842, followed by the Municipal Act 1867, Lord Ripon's Resolution on local
self-government 1882, Decentralization Commission 1907, Simon Commission 1925 and finally
by the Government of India Act 1935 (Arora and Rajni, 1995). In 1947, the areas, which
constituted Pakistan had few developed systems of local government and were confined mainly to
Punjab (Rizvi, 1976). Wherever local government existed; it was not based on adult franchise and
was under severe bureaucratic control (Quddus, 1981). In the early years after independence, the
national government could not give required attention to the development of local system
(Quddus, 1981). In fact the local government existed only in theory and not in the form of
functioning institutions with a representative character. Moreover, the financial condition of local
government was very weak, as it had always lacked a sound financial base (Abid, 2004).
Consequently, it failed in performing even its minimum functions. The situation continued until
the introduction of Basic democracies system 1959 by the then government. The chronology of
local government systems is given below with a brief account of each system.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1959-69

The first serious attempt to provide institutional framework at local level was made in 1959 by the
then president Ayub khan in the form of Basic Democracies (BD)” (Abid, 2004). The BD
comprised a hierarchical system of four linked tiers (Quddus, 1981). The lowest tier, the Union
Council, consisted of Basic Democrats elected through adult franchise, while the other tiers had
some members elected indirectly and some nominated by the Government and had officials as
Chairmen (Cheema et al., 2004).

The Basic Democracies system did make some achievements in terms of physical target, but it
could not emerge as a vehicle of change (Quddus, 1981). The main reasons were inherent and
built-in contradictions in the system itself (Rehman, 1987), such as severe bureaucratic control
through “controlling authority” (Siddique, 2000). The concept of ‘controlled democracy’ was the
most controversial (Rizvi, 1976). “According to (Khan, 1967) Ayub wanted to limit people’s
participation to choosing a political elite or ‘opinion leaders’ from amongst themselves. In Ayub’s
own words, it was a system to “suit the genius of the people” (Cheema et al., 2004).

“This partly bureaucratic and partly political system was used for distributing resources and
patronage in order “to secure a mandate for Ayub” (Gauhar, 1996) and build a constituency for
the military regime (Burki, 1980). It was based on a rigid hierarchical structure that could not
meaningfully involve the rural masses in planning and implementation of the projects. Moreover,
the corruption issues and allocation of funds in shape of political bribery weakened the confidence
of the rural masses and the system gradually lost the support of the societyand had to fall”
(Cheema et al., 2004).
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1972-77

The B.D system continued till 1971 and was abolished by the Pakistan People Party regime in
1972 (Abid, 2004). Under Bhutto, new system was re-organized through local government
ordinance 1972 (Paracha, 2003). The local bodies enacted under Bhutto could not become
operative because no elections were held (Quddus, 1981). Consequently, official administrators
governed local institutions from1971 to 1979 (Rehman, 1987). Since the political system at the
gross roots level was inadequate to articulate and resolve local problems, the bureaucracy
continued to have a free hand with no accountability of the Deputy Commissioner.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1979-84

After Bhutto, General Zia-ul- Haq revived local governments through the promulgation of Local
government ordinances 1979 and 1980. The new ordinances introduced a two-tier system of rural
and three types of urban local government structures in the four provinces of the country (Quddus,
1981). The councilors elected from among themselves a Chairman & a Vice Chairman. The
Chairman acted as an executive head of the local council (Abid, 2004). This system achieved a
fair degree of success but it had some weak areas too. There was centralization in terms of
services and facilities, lack of coordination between the Union Council and District Councils as
well as with the national building departments i.e. agriculture, health and education etc. The
capacity of union and district councils had not been built in terms of finances, project planning
and implementation so as to develop it as a viable institution of rural development. During this
period several political and administrative decisions were made which were considered unwanted
interference in the domain of local government system.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1985-98

“The revival of elected national and provincial governments in 1985 transplants the culture of
local body politics to the national and provincial levels (Wilder, 1999), in results, the MNAs &
MPAs took over the functions, performed by local representatives (Zaidi, 1999). Various
Prime/chief Minister’s special financial packages reinforced this trend and in turn, federal
parliamentarians managed local level development allocations. Consequently, the tension between
provincial and local tiers resulted in the suspension of local bodies between 1993 and 1998”
(Cheema et al., 2004).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 2001

In October 1999, the politically elected government was overthrown as the military took over
power in Pakistan. The Military Government established National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB)
to restructure the political and service structures through devolution, including empowerment of
citizens, decentralization of administrative authority, decentralization of professional functions,
distribution of financial resources to the provincial and local governments and authority through
the diffusion of power-authority nexus (Rafi khan, 2004). Each Provincial Government in August
2001 promulgated the Local Government Ordinances (World Bank report, 2004). A bird-eye view
of the new system is given in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A Bird-Eye View of the Structure of LG 2000

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

A researcher maintains that permanent change “results from reinforced practices or behavior
(Luthans, 1973),” emphasizing that if there is no accountability in terms of rewarding good
punishing bad, learning is not possible to take place. When reinforced, learning happens in
different areas of an organization, such as in the local government organizations learning is
observed in financial, political, human and administrative dimensions (Blaser et al., 2003).
DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING

Financial Learning

In the past, local governments have been unable to discharge their assigned functions primarily
because of the shortage of resources (Khan, 2004; Rizvi, 1976). Federal grants are generally ad
hoc; at flat rate and don’t take into account the needs of local bodies, which hamper their
performance (Siddique, 2000), however, the new plan initiated following steps to address this
issue:

A. Financial Power: The new plan provided a rule-based fiscal transfer between the
provinces and the local governments. The “Provincial Finance Commission” awards determine
the non-discretionary intergovernmental fiscal transfer process. Moreover, in addition to this, the
budgetary transfers are no longer lapsable.

B. Power to Levy & Collect Taxes: Local governments are empowered to impose taxes
with the approval of the respective local council. The second schedule part-1, section 39(b); part-
11, section 54 (i) and 67 (a) and part-111, section 88(b) of the ordinance empowered the Zila,
tehsil, town and union council respectively to levy the taxes (Manual Of Local Govt., 2005).

C. Power to Approve Budgets: The (Section 39(b), 67 (a) and 88 (a) of the ordinance fully
empowered the (district, tehsil and union council) to prepare and approve annual budgets
respectively (Manual of Local Govt., 2005).

Human Learning

The quality of local personnel, in the past, was so poor that whatever little bit efforts had been
made to establish the local government system on solid footings, had been nullified by the low
quality personnel available at the local level (Quddus, 1981). The new devolution plan
empowered the district government in the following aspects: {1The staff working in the district
are employed by the district, including six key features: autonomy in preparing the salary budget;
local control over the establishment; locally determined recruitment; local determination of career
paths; local management of staff performance and autonomy in pay policy. {2}Nazim’s authority
over senior staff, including inputs into performance evaluations for senior staff and power to
require their transfer. {3 External oversight, through accounts committees, Monitoring
Committees and District Public Safety Commissions. And {4} development of staff including
adequate numbers, skills and technical sanction power (World Bank Report, 2004).

Political Learning

Following aspects of political learning show the picture:

A. Political Commitment: - Both the previous military rulers (Ayub and Zia) misused
the local government systems; consequently both were winded up. However, the present military
government has expressed a strong will to carry out a decentralization policy and participatory
local governance (Lundberg, 2002). The political commitment of the government was re-
affirmed with the conduct of local bodies’ election 2005 at its proper schedule.

B. Political Actors: - Pakistan’s far-reaching devolution initiatives have been designed to

inject new blood into political system considered to be the domain of historically entrenched
interests (World Bank Report, 2004)

C. Electoral Arrangements: - Prior to devolution, members of urban local councils

and district councils were directly elected, and then elected the heads of their respective councils.
Under devolution, both the members and heads of the union council are elected through public
vote as before. However, the new legislation has created inter-governmental political linkages by
ensuring that the majority (two thirds) of the members of the district and Tehsil councils are these
elected Nazmin and Naib Nazmin of the union council. The directly elected union- council
members elect the remaining one-third members and heads of the district and Tehsil councils
indirectly. Thus in particular, the head of the district government, the District Nazim, need not
command a majority of the public vote in a district rather a majority of the union councilors and
union Nazims elected in the district. Another important change has been a significant increase in
reservation for peasants and women with a total of one-third seats reserved for both as compared
to 5% and 10% in the district councils previously (Cheema et al., 2004).

Administrative Learning

Decentralization is a process that is considered to improve the quality of governance and is

therefore being implemented in many countries. Blair (2000) states that “Decentralization,”
according to the UNDP, “is the logical application of the characteristics of good governance at
local levels.” Good governance, in turn, is one that ensures political, social and economic
priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most
vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.
Multilateral organizations generally equate good governance with sound economic management
based on participation; accountability; Predictability and Transparency (World Bank, 2000).

A. Participation: - The more the citizens are allowed to participate formally in

decision- making, the more they are able to exercise their voice (Goetz and Gaventa, 2001).
Despite the perceived advantages of people participation, both the previous local government
systems failed to provide due platform for people participation in local affairs (saddique, 2000;
Qaddus, 1981). However, the new system makes quite elaborate institutional arrangements for
people participation. Section (93) of the law provides for the setting up an elected village and
neighborhood councils to help the local administration in public service delivery. Moreover, there
are also provision for C.C.Bs to help with public service delivery and coordination between
government and NGOs (section 98). Finally section 134 of the ordinance sets up a district
ombudsman called the “Zila Mohtasib” to redress the citizen complaints against the mal-
administration of public officers.

B. Accountability: - Within the governance agenda accountability is identified as being

the key to sustain trust and reciprocity within and between government and citizens (Rakodi,
2001). Accountability implies – ‘responsiveness to the demands of the governed, enforced by
respect of the rule of law and an independent judiciary, together with elected bodies exercising
oversight, widespread access to information and a free media (Healy and Tordoff, 1995). Both the
previous local government systems failed to provide any mechanism for accountability at local
level. Prior to devolution, bureaucracy at the district level was accountable to their non-elected
provincial secretariat, while under the present system they are accountable to the elected heads of
district and Tehsil governments (Cheema et al., 2004). The new devolution plan has changed the
nature of both the horizontal and the vertical checks, which are: {1} The new system has created
new formal horizontal mechanisms, such as {a} monitoring committees, to establish checks on
the executive. {b} Increased vertical checks in the form of citizen oversight, both through direct
elections as well as through oversight bodies such as District Public Safety Commissions. {2}
Balanced autonomy and accountability for the police {a} The Police Order 2002 has reoriented
the management of policing in order to insulate it from political interference, placing its
professional management under the District Police Officer who becomes responsible for all police
professional matters including postings and transfers of officers; {b}) New structures of District
Public Safety Commission and Police Complaints Authorities provide new routes of
accountability.

C. Transparency: - There is an increasing pressure on the political system,

administrative apparatus generated by civil society to share information and making decisions
transparent. It is widely recognized that in past, secrecy and lack of openness in transactions was
largely responsible for corruption in official dealings (Shani and Medury, 2003). Open access and
the free flow of information is a basic element of the devolution plan. Comprehensive system to
ensure transparency through information on across the board government functions will be made
functional through three types of detailed standard forms and lists: {a} Lists containing routine
information of public interest on the office/organization, which is to be displayed for public view.
{b} Lists of documents that departments or functionaries would be obliged to produce before
monitoring committees or Citizen Community Boards on demand. {c} Standardized forms for use
by Citizen Community Boards and monitoring committees at the Union, Tehsil and District level
to submit periodic monitoring reports to the Zila Nazim or Zila Council. Section (115) provides
for regular and special audit of local council. It also provides for internal control through
enquiries (section, 111) and inspections of government offices (section, 135-136). Section 137 of
the law directs the district government to provide all kinds of information to members of public
(MOLG, 2005).

D. Service Delivery: - The track record of social sector service delivery in Pakistan is so
poor that it is tempting to assert that almost any reformed governance arrangements would
produce better results (World Bank Report, 2004). Many reports point out that Pakistan lags
behind countries with comparable per capita income on most of the social indicators. However the
Devolution offers a new set of institutional arrangements that can produce effective solution.
Section 18 (d); 54 (h); 76(j) held responsible the Zila, Tehsil and Union administration for service
delivery respectively (MOLG, 2005). Furthermore the devolution plan changes the accountability
relationships and the relative importance of various actors- most notably politicians and policy
makers- associated with service delivery (World Bank Report, 2004).

BARRIERS TO LEARNING

Reasons to why expected learning has not occurred in the vicissitudes of LG systems in Pakistan
are many however; all factors don’t play the same role. Some are significant as identified in the
literature (see for example,). Following are the most significant impediments in the way of
effective learning:
1. Lower National Literacy Rates: Since our national literacy rate is lower, the same is reflected
in the organizations of the country.
2. Political Illiteracy: All national, provincial and local political leadership has remained more
feudal and tribal than filtered through some standard qualification and professionalism about their
role. So, LG systems suffered inattention, as did the other matters at the national level for
constitutional sophistication. Local government representatives still lack their knowledge of even
the constitutional duties.
3. Bureaucracy/Administrative: Bureaucracy opposes any share in power. Thus, they dislike
peoples’ participation, prefer secrecy on transparency, and try their best to keep control of
resources even at the cost of service delivery. Peoples’ learning about’ how government works?’
strengthens accountability thereby putting bureaucrats on the defense.
4. Political Instability: If a system continues to work, people learn gradually but unwarranted
interruptions and political deadlocks help in unlearning the learned rather than learning anything.
This creates confusions and suspicions about the system. LG systems in Pakistan inherit the same
story.

DISCUSSION

Given this Pakistan must have learned to customize the local government system with local needs
and demands but it did not happen because it has a poor track record of democracy as for more
than half of its years of existence after independence, it has been ruled by the military. While the
military governments always found faults with the politicians, it was always them who created the
local government systems. In Pakistan, always a limited local democracy had been introduced in
order to convey some kind of democratic legitimacy to an authoritarian regime. Sivaramakishnan
(2000) noted this phenomenon for Pakistan. “Local government fared much better during eras of
authoritarian rule than in times of democratic rule. During democratic regimes the local level
often lost the attractiveness because it was not any longer the only platform available for people
participation. Additionally, local government had to come to terms with bad reputation acquired
under autocratic regimes”. According to (Paracha, 2003) the history of local governments in
Pakistan “is characterized by two factors; Firstly, the local governments have never been
autonomously functional in the presence of democratic governments. Secondly, every time a new
system of local government was created, it was totally from a scratch with no linkages to the
previous system”.

Pakistan has experimented with two systems of local government before the introduction of
present devolution plan. These were the Basic Democracies in 1959, and the Peoples Local
Government System 1979, (Quddus, 1981) both during military regimes. The underlying idea of
both the system was to invoke people participation in developmental activities and to integrate
local aspirations with national objectives. Both the systems did make some achievements in terms
of physical targets, but it could not emerged as a vehicle of change due to inherent built-in
contradiction in the system itself, lack of people participation, political role assigned to it and the
complete bureaucratic control on its operations especially in the Basic democracy system
(Quddus, 1981).
The present devolution plan is also a brainchild of military government. The new local
government system is primarily designed to be people centered, responsibility based and service
oriented at the grass root level. It has been designed to create an enabling environment in which
the people can participate in community welfare and be the masters of their own destiny. The
system is based on five fundamentals: devolution of political power, decentralization of
administrative authority, decentralization of management functions, diffusion of the power-
authority nexus, and distribution of resources to the district level.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper argued that in order to understand the current devolution plan in Pakistan, it is
imperative to view it in the historical context of previous reforms. A constant theme that emerges
in this context is that these reforms have been introduced by the military regimes. In fact, each of
the three military regimes in Pakistan has implemented local government reforms and each
political government that has followed, has ignored the local governments. The other theme that
emerged from the analysis is that each of the successive reform has learnt lessons from the past
and incorporated all the desired changes.

The latest reforms are the most comprehensive so far (World Bank Report, 2004). What is
different about the current devolution reforms is that they have gone much further in terms of
their extent and scope (Cheema et al. 2004). The (Manual of Local Government, 2005) provide
for an unprecedented range of bodies to encourage and accord a mandatory status to citizen
engagement in local governance. Most noteworthy are Citizen Community Boards (CCBs), but
these complemented by local arrangements for alternative dispute resolution, monitoring of
conduct, promoting justice, accountability of the police and administrative grievance redressal
(World Bank Report, 2004) However, the implementation in practice of the devolution has to face
some hard challenges as well. The difficulties to be faced are linked with the weak governance
capacities at local level (Crook and Sverrisson, 1999), lack of sufficient resources (Khan, 2004) in
a big number of communes, specially in mountain rural areas, tendencies of concentration of
wealth in some large but few urban areas, weak citizen participation in community affairs (World
Bank Report, 2004), and a strong dominance of political interests over community interest
(Zaman, 2002). In addition, the plan’s association with the political schema of a military regime
undermines both its legitimacy as a system and its prospects of survival. In such conditions the
level of devolution in practice will take a long time.

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