Pakistan’s ongoing governance crisis has sparked renewed calls for the creation of new provinces, but experts warn this approach could worsen fiscal, political, and ethnic tensions while delivering little improvement to citizens’ daily lives. The Governance and Transparency Think Network (GTTN) argues that the country’s challenges stem not from provincial boundaries, but from weak, under-resourced, and unaccountable local institutions.
According to the GTTN report, creating new provinces would significantly increase non-development expenditure, with costs for governor’s offices, cabinets, secretariats, high courts, and expanded bureaucracies diverting scarce resources from essential public services. Experts also caution that additional provinces could empower political and bureaucratic elites, fostering patronage networks rather than citizen-focused governance, a phenomenon observed in countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Provincial fragmentation would also destabilise political representation. Pakistan’s Senate allocates equal representation to each province, and adding new provinces would alter this balance, potentially inflaming inter-provincial tensions. Smaller provinces may perceive their influence as diluted, while larger ones could paradoxically increase their aggregate Senate presence, undermining the goal of reducing dominance.
Ethnic tensions represent another critical risk. Existing provinces contain internal balances that moderate nationalist pressures. Redrawing boundaries along ethnic lines could intensify separatist or nationalist movements. In Sindh, proposals for an Urdu-speaking majority province could reignite debates over the controversial “Jinnahpur” plan. In Balochistan, new provinces might embolden ethnic or tribal nationalism rather than resolve it.
Instead of territorial fragmentation, the GTTN report advocates strengthening local governments to deliver services effectively and rebuild public trust. Past experiences, including the 2001–2009 devolution experiment, demonstrated that accountable local institutions could improve service delivery in infrastructure, water, sanitation, and electrification. Failures of previous reforms were largely due to provincial resistance, inadequate fiscal transfers, and political interference rather than flaws in design.
The report outlines eight key reforms to make local governance effective: constitutional protection for local governments, genuine fiscal autonomy with guaranteed transfers, clear functional assignments, a right-sized multi-tier system, professional administration with political accountability, robust transparency and oversight, technology-enabled service delivery, and police reform with local accountability. Experts argue that these measures offer a sustainable path to improved governance, citizen satisfaction, and strengthened trust in the state.
Constitutional protection is essential to prevent local governments from being dismantled for political convenience. Fiscal autonomy requires at least 30 per cent of provincial revenues to flow automatically to local authorities, alongside control over property taxes, local fees, and other revenues. A clear functional assignment would ensure services like education, health, water, sanitation, and local roads are the responsibility of local councils, while provinces provide technical support and oversight.
The recommended three-tier local government structure includes hyper-local union or neighbourhood councils for small-scale services, tehsil or town corporations for core service delivery, and district councils for strategic planning and coordination. Professional local administrators would implement policies under elected heads, supported by transparent hiring, performance contracts, and citizen oversight mechanisms. Police reform, the report emphasises, must combine operational independence with local accountability to restore law and order.
The GTTN concludes that Pakistan faces a stark choice: pursue the symbolic, politically appealing path of new provinces, which risks worsening governance and ethnic tensions, or commit to the challenging but sustainable route of genuine institutional reform. Functional devolution, experts argue, offers tangible improvements in citizens’ lives, while provincial fragmentation risks deepening dysfunction without addressing the root causes of Pakistan’s governance crisis.