The discussion on how to improve governance in Pakistan is indeed a welcome initiative, but is it heading in the right direction and being pursued with the seriousness it deserves? Apparently, neither direction nor seriousness is evident when one looks at the arguments presented by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and his like-minded colleagues in the federal government. In particular, presenting the creation of new provinces as a single solution to Pakistan’s widespread corruption and incompetence raises doubts about the intentions behind the campaign. Absurdly, the large size of the provinces is being blamed for chronic poor governance without presenting any solid regional or international evidence.
That said, it is yet to be clarified what they mean by “large provinces.” Is the proposal referring to demographic size or geographic size? Punjab is large in terms of population, while Balochistan is geographically the largest province. In short, at present, it appears to be little more than a desire, the details of which are yet to be worked out. Therefore, one wonders why this issue has resurfaced on Pakistan’s political landscape at this point in time. Of course, timing and context matter when trying to understand what lies behind the smokescreen. Having followed the arguments both for and against the creation of new provinces, it has become relatively easy to discern the motive of “the powers” behind this suddenly energized campaign, now being advanced in the name of better governance.
It appears that better governance is merely a pretext, especially when the recent discussions between the federal government and the provinces concerning the NFC Award are considered alongside the current proposal to create new provinces. Given this context, one would not be off the mark in saying that the real target is the NFC Award, over which Islamabad has constantly complained that, under the current arrangement, a bulk of financial resources is transferred to the provinces, leaving the federal government with inadequate resources to meet its debt-servicing, defence, and other strategic obligations. However, Islamabad’s claims are a separate matter that needs to be investigated rather than accepted at face value.
For the first time recently, the provinces were reportedly coerced into providing Rs. 1,033 billion to the Centre as a grant, even though there is no constitutional requirement under the existing NFC Award for the provinces to return surplus funds to the federal government. Therefore, this case lends credence to the suspicion that the real bone of contention between Islamabad and the provinces is the NFC Award, which the Centre appears determined to revise in a way that would increase the share of resources available to Islamabad. The provinces, particularly Sindh, seem to be in disagreement.
Redrawing maps to create new provinces or installing another empowered local bodies system will yield nothing if the gatekeepers of power remain unchanged.
Given the chequered history of conflicts between Islamabad and the provinces over resources, the current NFC Award framework was designed to strengthen the fiscal autonomy of the provinces. The Constitution protects the provinces against any reduction in their share in a subsequent award. Specifically, the Constitution envisages that the provinces should receive no less than their share under the preceding award. The direction of fiscal devolution was to transfer more resources towards the provinces, not to take them back.
Islamabad is demanding, directly and indirectly, a reversal of the changes made to the NFC Award under the 18th Amendment, but the Sindh government is apparently reluctant to agree to it. Moreover, PPP Senator Barrister Zamir Ghumro and his colleagues in the Senate are criticizing the federal government for deliberately delaying the implementation of the 18th Amendment for more than a decade. At the first meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Devolution, these senators asked the federal government to put its own house in order first. The committee pointed out a major problem: the federal government continues to maintain ministries, institutions, and functions relating to health, education, national food security, climate change, housing, water resources, special initiatives, culture and heritage, and narcotics, despite the fact that these are provincial subjects following the 18th Amendment.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the federal government is incurring a colossal expenditure of around Rs. 19 trillion on all functions, including those relating to ministries devolved to the provinces. Therefore, the committee suggested that these expenditures could be brought down to Rs. 13 trillion by implementing the 18th Amendment in letter and spirit. In this way, the federal government could reduce its financial burden without pressuring the provinces to surrender their share of resources under the NFC Award. Incidentally, Gilgit-Baltistan has also demanded a share in the NFC, for which a case for amendments to the award is being pursued. If this happens, the existing share of the provinces will inevitably shrink.
If Islamabad has yet to fully devolve functions and rationalize the federal machinery in accordance with the 18th Amendment, how can it justify demanding that a greater share of resources be diverted from the provinces to the Centre because it cannot meet its expenses? Isn’t that strange? Besides that, the federal government is not alone in failing to devolve power and resources fully. The provinces, too, have been reluctant to pass on the powers and resources devolved to local governments under the 18th Amendment. Article 140-A of the Constitution explicitly provides for the devolution of political, administrative, and financial responsibilities and authority to elected local governments. But the provinces have not done so.
On the other hand, the provinces appear to be deeply interested in what needs to be devolved from Islamabad to them, but far less interested in what needs to be devolved from them to the level below. This is perhaps the central irony of Pakistan’s devolution debate: everyone is eager to claim the power and resources that lie above them, but is unwilling to delegate the same to those below. Nonetheless, the debate over governance must continue. Pakistan simply cannot progress without fixing these entrenched structural failures. Ultimately, what difference will it make if the same political elites, their families, and loyalists continue to capture positions of power? Redrawing maps to create new provinces or installing another empowered local government system along the lines of the Musharraf era will yield nothing if the gatekeepers of power remain unchanged.