We have a penchant to toy with settled matters, tease sleeping monsters, and resurrect old controversies. The question of provincial autonomy has confronted the country since its inception. It was the main cause of the alienation of former East Pakistan, and the persistent and constant protests of the smaller provinces in this part of Pakistan for over six decades. Finally, this issue was settled by unanimously adopting the 18th Amendment to the 1973 Constitution in April 2010. We lost the bigger part of the country while trying to have a strong centre, countering the demand of Bengal and the smaller units for provincial autonomy by the infamous scheme of One Unit.
We dispensed with the provincial status of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and merged them into a single unit with its capital at Lahore. Islamabad and Lahore became the hub of political, economic, financial and administrative decisions. The establishment saw the folly of this scheme after a long 15 years and, acceding to the demand of the people, abolished it before the general elections of 1970.
The 1973 Constitution did not appropriately address the question of provincial autonomy. The Pakistan Peoples Party owed its power to its majority from Punjab, and the establishment. Thus, it had to go along with them on many issues, including provincial autonomy, the division of federal financial resources, and the transfer and posting of senior officers in the provinces. In united Pakistan, we had unjustifiably adopted territory as the main base for the financial award from the divisible pool of resources without taking into consideration the size of the population and contributions to the national exchequer by both wings. In the 1973 Constitution, we instead adopted population as the main base for the distribution of financial resources and federal administrative jobs to benefit the bigger province. This is, at least, how the smaller provinces looked at these constitutional provisions.
Hence, the smaller provinces continued to protest for provincial autonomy and a fair national financial award, necessitating an appropriate amendment to the 1973 Constitution, which was, in any case, mutilated by dictators inserting many absurd and person-specific clauses into it. Notwithstanding its overall bad governance, the credit for restoring the parliamentary character of the 1973 Constitution goes to the fourth Pakistan Peoples Party government that unanimously adopted the 18th Amendment, doing away with the person-specific stipulations in the Constitution and introducing a new National Finance Award with particular safeguards, with the support of all stakeholders. This was a spectacular achievement.
The Amendment has recognised the stake of the smaller provinces in the economic, financial and administrative matters which had previously remained the exclusive discretion of the federal government. The share of the provinces from the divisible resources of the country had been the bone of contention between the federation and federating units. The Amendment solved this burning issue by reviewing the National Finance Commission Award, allocating 55.5 percent of the divisible resources to the provinces, leaving the federation with the remaining portion to meet the requirements of the federal subjects, including defence, debt retirement, public development, salaries and pensions.
We should not tamper with the 18th Amendment and the financial share of the smaller provinces or the settled question of provincial autonomy
The Amendment dispensed with the concurrent list of subjects and transferred all the subjects of provincial domain to the federating units. These notably included education, local bodies, health, agriculture and food, industry, and law and order. This was meant to lighten the burden of the federation. After the Amendment, the federation was supposed to transfer all these subjects to the provinces. Unfortunately, the federation failed to do so and retained some of the subjects partially or completely. It still has full-fledged ministries of education, food security and health. It had to cut proportionately the size of the federal bureaucracy and exercise strict control on the circular debts of the federally managed autonomous bodies and public enterprises to bring its overhead expenditures under control.
The federal authorities did not curtail their expenses. Instead, they continued to have oversized cabinets, an ever-growing federal bureaucracy and increased foreign junkets, and kept on adding to the foreign debts to meet their unjustified expenses. The Pakistan Democratic Movement government, at the senescence of its tenure, reportedly doled out billions of funds to its legislators for constituency-based development projects. There has been no accountability for such dole-outs. The International Monetary Fund report on corruption and accountability has clearly exposed the hollow claims of the Pakistan Democratic Movement and the current hybrid government regarding good governance. The usurpation of over 6.5 percent of the gross domestic product of the country by the elite, and the loss of 20 billion dollars in corruption, as pointed out by the report, is a slap in the face of our rulers.
The Amendment also made the provinces duty-bound to spend their increased share from the national financial award prudently in the interest of their people, and to devolve financial, administrative and development powers to the elected local governments by devising provincial financial awards. They failed to do so and continued with the old, corrupt system of doling out huge sums to the provincial legislatures for their constituency-based development projects without accountability or scrutiny of such development funds. In most cases, the schemes remained on paper without any physical evidence on the sites. That is why the increased share of the National Finance Commission has not made any difference as far as the living conditions of the populace are concerned.
The National Finance Commission Award is not responsible for the financial woes of the federation. It is the mismanagement and reckless expenditure of funds at the federal level that has caused financial disarray in the federation. We should not tamper with the 18th Amendment and the financial share of the smaller provinces or the settled question of provincial autonomy. There will be a strong reaction to any such move. The country is faced with the twin crises of political polarisation and economic instability, which are shaking its very foundations. We can hardly afford to have another national controversy.
The federal authorities would be well advised to strengthen the Office of the Auditor General of Pakistan and revamp the National Accountability Bureau to eradicate corruption and corrupt practices from the governing structural machinery.