LOCAL GOVERNMENT

“local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations"

All Politics is local
Centralized
De-concentration
Devolution: Authority (PAF)______Decentralization

Multi-level Governance (How the power is spread)

Multi-level (or multilevel) governance is a term used to describe the way
power is spread vertically between many levels of government and
horizontally across multiple quasi-government and non-governmental
organizations and actors.

Origin:
Multi-level governance is an approach in political science and public
administration theory that originated from studies on European integration.
Political scientists Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks developed the
concept of multi-level governance in the early 1990s.

Concept:
The "vertical" dimension refers to the linkages between higher and
lower levels of government, including their institutional, financial, and
informational aspects(coordination). Here, local capacity building and
incentives for effectiveness of sub national levels of government(LG)t
are crucial issues for improving the quality and coherence of public
policy.
The "horizontal" dimension refers to co-operation arrangements
between regions or between municipalities. These agreements are
increasingly common as a means by which to improve the effectiveness of
local public service delivery and implementation of development
strategies.

Pakistan>>>>> (four Units)

Punjab ( X, Y(North, Central, South))

Local Governments:
1) de Tocqueville links local government to being
fundamental to a free people
2) local government promotes individual initiative while
restraining growth of a centralized state

Why Local Governments matter?

While discourse over major national and global issues attract
the most attention, it is local government that most directly
affects our daily lives.
1) Security
2) Economic Interdependence
 3) Efficiency
4) Revenue collection
5) Improvement in governance
6) Human Resource Development
7) Management of the resources(Energy, Economy, Political Resource,
Policy Resource)
8) Improvement in the social sector(Education , Health) (Pr, Pub, NGOs,
Community based)
9) Improvement in HDI(GNP+GDP+)

Why Devolution Matters

1) To enable “good governance.”

Devolution of power from central to local governments has been promoted by

international development agencies and bilateral donors for the past two decades
as the means to enable “good governance.”
a) Accountability
b) Service Delivery
c) Efficiency
d) Transparency
e) Public Participation
f) Effectiveness
g) Sound Policies (funnel Approach)
 2) To facilitate greater accountability

Proponents of devolution aim to facilitate greater accountability from

elected officials and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of
government services by bringing governance mechanisms closer to the
people .(19-A)

3) can serve a number of broader politico-economic goals

Moreover, empowered and well-functioning local governments can serve a
number of broader political economy goals—enhancing equity and
egalitarianism (equality for all) by restructuring the state to prevent elite led
capture and allowing marginalized and otherwise disgruntled segments of
society a greater say in governance.

Ex: Patronage system

22-200

4) for improving the efficiency of social service delivery

A populous and heterogeneous developing country like Pakistan needs

several layers of local governments both for improving the efficiency of
social service delivery and for ;

5) Alleviates the underlying causes of ethnic, regional, and socioeconomic

tensions.
6) help address inter- and intra-provincial grievances

LG2022 (MQM, JI) (Baluchistan , Sindh, Punjab, KP)

Article 140-A was added to the constitution after the 18th Amendment.
The amendment is largely about decentralization and devolution of
powers from the federal government to provincial and local govt.

1973

Governments (F, P) . Article 140-A clearly talks about financial and

administrative independence of the local governments.

Fiscal Autonomies and Administrative Autonomies

Historicizing Pakistan’s governments

Since its founding as a federation in 1947, Pakistan’s history has been marked by
periods of military rule, authoritarian political leadership, and centralized
administration (even during periods of democratic government).

Political patronage and elite-led development policies have done little to

alleviate the inequitable distribution of resources across and within different
regions of the country.

NFC, FLL, CL(abolished now) ----------

Devolution of power can thus potentially help address inter- and intra-provincial
grievances, the neglect of marginalized ethnic groups and their irredentist claims,
and the problems of marginalization and deprivation of vast segments of the
country’s population.

First Local Government System in Pakistan:

The idea of devolving power is not new for Pakistan. Since the introduction of a
quasi-local government system in 1959,
local representative governments have been created and disbanded several times
by military governments.

The current attempt at devolution is, however, unique: it is the first time that
local governments have been formed under a democratically elected
government.

Yet local governments merely existing under a democratic setup is not enough,
not least because the current system of local governance remains severely
hindered. To understand why, it is important to examine Pakistan’s earlier
experiences with devolution.

Pakistani Experiences with Devolution

The history of devolution in Pakistan predates the creation of the country.

The British colonial administration formed municipalities in the nineteenth

century—although; 1) they were never substantively empowered,2) had
extremely circumscribed functions, and 3) were dominated by appointed (as
opposed to elected) officials.
It was the deputy commissioner, a district-level agent of the central
bureaucracy, who emerged as the principle actor at the local level during the
colonial period.

Local Government under Ayub Khan

After independence, Pakistan’s first serious attempt to focus on local
governments occurred under the 1958 martial law, which began to emphasize
the need for representative politics at the local level while disbanding central-
and provincial-level assemblies. As during the British period, General Ayub
Khan’s local government system was controlled by the bureaucracy and the
offices of the deputy commissioner.

80,000(BD) (UC) …..Electoral Colleges ( Election of Ayub)

Another military-led government under General Zia-ul-Haq revived the local

government system from 1977 to 1988. Like Ayub, Zia undertook political
centralization at the federal and provincial levels while instituting electoral
representation at the local level. However, the increased political importance of
local bodies was not complemented by decentralization of federal or provincial
administrative functions, nor by the delegation of any significant financial powers
to the local governments.

During the democratic period of 1988–99, four democratically elected political

governments gained power, but none of them focused on the local government
system. They preferred instead to rely on provincial elites using their local
patronage systems to keep them in power

The next time Pakistan experimented with devolution was under General (later
President) Pervez Musharraf. His devolutionary exercise was also a legitimizing
strategy for centralized rule, since it did not devolve power from the federal level
to the provinces and instead focused on creating local governments on a
nonparty basis. Yet the Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 2001 passed early in
Musharraf’s tenure was quite ambitious in scope.

The LGO 2001 not only gave constitutional cover to local governments, it
reserved a significant proportion of local government seats for women (33
percent) and, to a lesser degree, for religious minorities and other marginalized
communities (such as peasants and workers). It also created avenues for the
direct involvement of citizens in the process of social service delivery through
the creation of citizen community boards, which worked with local governments
to implement community development project

Nevertheless, two rounds of local government elections were held under the LGO
2001 (in 2001 and in 2005). Local government elections were due to be held
again in 2009, but following the 2008 general election the mainstream political
parties agreed to postpone them until they could amend the local government
system. Local governments were subsequently dissolved in July 2009 by the
government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and the bureaucracy
stepped in to manage things until local governments could be reconstituted.
 Devolution under Democracy

Since the democratically elected government decided to undo the extensive

devolutionary process put in place by General Musharraf instead of trying to
reform it, Pakistan did not have functional local governments for several years
after democracy returned to the country in 2008.

This period included the entire tenure of the PPP government (2008–13) and the
first three years of the PML-N government (2013–16).

However, under the PPP government in April 2010, the parliament passed the
eighteenth amendment to the constitution, which devolved significant power
from the center to the provinces and was lauded as a necessary step to
overcome Pakistan’s authoritarian legacy of excessively centralized governance.

The amendment also required the creation of local governments by the

provinces to bring government closer to the people ;(although it did not specify
an overarching framework or time frame for formulating them)

The lack of a constitutionally mandated time frame delayed local government

elections.

Balochistan passed its Local Government Act less than a month after parliament
passed the Eighteenth Amendment Act, but the other three provinces took
another three years to do so. Balochistan conducted protracted elections, the
final phase of which was completed in January 2015
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) held local elections in May 2015, while Punjab and
Sindh held their elections in late 2015.

This was the first time in Pakistan’s history that local elections were held on a
political party basis. However, even after these elections were held, the
provinces did little to facilitate the process of making the local governments
truly functional.

Fiscal
Administrative
Political

Federal (Civil Services)

By early 2016, owing to long delays in the transfer of power and funds to local
governments, the Supreme Court again ordered the provinces to speed up the
transfer of authority to the local governments.

Since the current local government acts were formulated by different provincial
governments rather than imposed on the provinces by the federal government,
the scope and scale of devolution and its associated powers and functions varies
from province to province.

For instance, the scope of decentralization in KP is broader than in the other

provinces. KP has devolved power beyond the district, tehsil, and union council
levels of local government to the even lower tier of village and neighborhood
councils.

The KP government also resolved to allocate more than 30 percent of its

provincial budget to local governments. However, it has since reduced this
commitment; for the current financial year (2017–18), the allocation to local
governments was reduced by 8 percent due to underutilization, alleged
corruption, and lack of capacity to spend the funds efficiently.

In Sindh and Punjab, the local government laws are more centrist, and relations
between the local and provincial governments are explicitly asymmetrical.

Both Punjab and Sindh have done away with the midlevel tier of local
government (the tehsil), and have not created any further local government
structures beyond the union council level. In Punjab, local governments are
dominated by the PML-N, with very few local officials belonging to other political
parties

Further variations arise from the fact that the eighteenth amendment, which
delegated devolutionary powers to the provinces, also disbanded the federal
ministry for local government and rural development, which was responsible for
overseeing devolution in the provinces.

Despite these variations, all the provincial local government acts exhibit a
common thread of centralization: they all give provincial governments control
over policies and operations, and they reserve for the provincial chief ministers
the authority to suspend or remove the heads of an elected local government

Punjab Local Government Act 2021:

It proposes creation of 11 metropolitan corporations — nine at

divisional headquarters and one each in Sialkot and Gujrat. It has also
identified 15 municipal corporations and proposed a municipal
corporation status for Murree. Each municipal corporation will have
population less than 250,000 people.

109 municipal committees and 125 town committees will be carved

in the urban local governments having more than 50,000 and 25,000
population

The Punjab Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD)

Department has proposed 1,883 neighbourhood councils

In the rural areas, the department has proposed 35 district councils and
3,364 village councils.

mode of the LG elections

Regarding mode of the LG elections, the government has proposed
party-based as well as direct elections for all upper tiers,
neighbourhood and village councils.

For the upper tiers, it proposed 37pc elections on the party-base,

having panels comprising head, deputy head and councillors on
reserved seats, while the 63pc through direct election to be held on
the basis of closed list proportional representation of general
councillors. This whole upper tier election will be held through
only one ballot paper.

For the neighbourhood and village councils:

Chairman (

Chairman, Vice Chairman, councillors on reserved seats as a panel

of seven will be held on a party basis while six general councillors
will be elected on proportional representation, only on one ballot
paper.

X, Y ===UC
X-57%

43%

Devolution mechanism:

To fix role of authorities and public sector companies in the

metropolitan corporations, including PHAs, development
authorities, waste management companies, parking companies
as well as sports, literacy and population welfare.
1) The department has also proposed authorities in each district,
including a health authority; a education authority; a social
welfare authority, a population control authority and sports
and recreation authority.
SINDH LOCAL GOVERNMENT:

Sindh Local Government Act 2013:

Tiers:
1)MC ,5 DC MC, One DC for rural areas (Khi)

2) Hyd, Sukkur, Larkana

It was based on functions of LG and Municipal Corporations

Revenue, Police, other Department
3) Local Councils established( They will work under provincial laws)
4) To ensure accountability: Local Government Commission
Five members( 2 MPA, 2 Technocrats, one minister LG as
chairman of Commission)
5) Provincial Finance Commission:
a. Distribution of the resources to local councils
6) LG elections Election Commission
7) Party Basis
8) Mayor ( Councilors)

Local Government Act 2021 ( Nov 2021)

• Functions of education, health taken away
• Mayor to be elected through secret ballot
• Towns to replace DMCs

140 ensure
Today, America is governed by 87,576 local units. This
includes 3,034 counties, 19,429 municipalities (cities,
towns, villages), 16,504 townships, 13,506 school
districts, and 35,052 special districts (such as water &
sewer, fire, and conservation).

Counties, Municipalities, Townships =X

Special Districts =Y

Tickets (revenue Generation)

Road=
PHA,