The speakers were:

• Daniyal Aziz, Consultant, National Reconstruction Bureau
• Dr Shahrukh Rafi Khan, Executive Director, SDPI
• Dr Kaiser Bengali, Consultant, Social Policy and Development Centre, Karachi
• Dr A.R. Kemal, Director, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics

Peter Ellwood
In his opening remarks Peter Ellwood gave a brief introduction of the British Council and the work it does in Pakistan and around the world. This includes work in the field of governance and human rights, specifically in legal and judicial reform, management and administrative reform, gender mainstreaming, and information dissemination on related issues.

Peter Ellwood said that Britain’s experiences, good and bad, in working with the democratic process have an obvious resonance in Pakistan, especially at a time when the British government is actively promoting devolution within the UK, establishing, for example, a parliament in Scotland.

  It would be thus strange, he said, if the British Council, in the context of one of the most widely represented information provision organisations in the world, did anything else. ‘We have a duty and an obligation to contribute to this process,’ he said.

The Director said that he was delighted that the British Council was collaborating with an organisation of the calibre of the SDPI in holding the seminar. He said he hoped that the event would prove to be the first of a series of similar events, stretching over the next few months and years. He thanked the speakers and the participants for taking part in the seminar.

Daniyal Aziz
Daniyal Aziz presented an overview of the government’s recently announced Devolution Plan which proposes a number of changes in local government, the administrative and management set up, elections, and police reforms. In the past, he said, attempts had been made by President Ayub Khan through the Basic Democracies system and then later by President Zia by introducing the Local Bodies set up.

A number of tiers were increased in local administration. Lateral expansion took place the aim of which was to enhance the careers of bureaucrats. This did little else than add to departmental rivalry; government service and delivery was marginalised, and it was unable to keep pace with maintaining law and order; corruption grew as did politicisation of the bureaucracy.

  In the present system, said Mr Aziz, Deputy Commissioners and Deputy Inspectors General are, by law, chief executive officers of a district and rule arbitrarily. Such a style of governance is a vestige of our colonial past as the system has no participative mechanism. Local tiers have no political structure nor mechanism for transparency or accountability. The only level at which local government interaction takes place is provincial.

[Background note: Union Nazims and Naib Union Nazims will be elected directly by the people in urban and rural wards (constituencies) to head Union Councils which will form the basis of the new administrative setup. There will be a Tehsil Government, members of which will be elected by a body comprising Naib Union Nazims. The Zila or District Government will be formed by the Union Nazims from which elections will be held for Zila Nazim and Naib Zila Nazim.]

Daniyal Aziz pointed out that the present system has a static sectoral system and lacks spatial planning. We need a system in which a needs assessment can take place. Moreover, at present performance evaluation is non-existent and colonial.

Mr Aziz also highlighted some aspects of the fiscal side of the plan. At the end of the presentation a video was shown portraying the plight of the common man in Pakistan and his problems which, the video suggested, were due to the present administrative system.

Dr Kaiser Bengali
Dr Kaiser Bengali, speaking against the proposed Devolution Plan, said that the present regime is illegitimate and that no good could come out of evil. In reply to Daniyal Aziz’s claim that DCs and DIG rule arbitrarily, Dr Bengali said that this is exactly what the present regime has done: it suspended people’s elected assemblies.

  Dr Bengali questioned Mr Aziz’s assertion that the previous governments were elite for the elite. He pointed at the high value of assets declared by the present rulers when they took oath of office. He asked to know how much has been spent by the military – which has ruled for 30 of Pakistan’s 53 independent years – on making squash courts and swimming pools in various cantonments of the country.

He said that in a federal system law exists in a provincial framework. There are 13 federal ministries, he pointed out, that are on the government’s concurrent list. These should be abolished and powers transferred to the provinces.

Dr Bengali argued that District was not the right level for powers to be devolved; this should be Division for how will Districts raise funds for themselves?

Dr Bengali pointed out that according to the figures now available for the November 1998 – October 1999 period, it can be seen that the economy was being turned around, and that the military by halting the process has done much wrong.

He said that it remains for the present regime to implement the plan, and he did not doubt the intentions of the people who came up with the plan.

Dr Shahrukh Rafi Khan
Dr Shahrukh Rafi Khan said that SDPI had written three policy papers and briefs with Asia Foundation on the Devolution Plan: i) An Indicative Model for Power Devolution to the Grassroots Level; ii) Devolution of Power to the Grassroots Level: Some Key Issues; iii) Costing the National Reconstruction Bureau’s Devolution Proposal (policy brief).

He welcomed the government’s move to address gender issues in the Devolution Plan and also welcomed the process of accountability that was being proposed in the new set-up. However, he said, this should have been based on the 1973 Constitution, power given to the provinces and party politics encouraged.

  Dr Khan presented a costing of the Devolution Plan, saying that according to a study by SDPI, it would cost Rs 14.5 billion to implement the plan. According to a study by SPDC, Karachi a Rs 80 billion budget would need to be allocated to the districts.

Dr Khan was concerned that the elite class in Pakistan’s governments would still return and win future elections despite the Devolution of Power Plan.

Dr A.R. Kemal
Dr A.R. Kemal highlighted the fiscal side of the plan. He said that work must be carried out to ascertain division of taxation either at the District or Division level. Other aspects he highlighted included revenue generation and paying the Provincial and Federal governments. What proportion would this be? What should be the criteria? Should this be based on population? Area? Poverty level? Should this be need-based?

  What about grants? Which Districts? Grants could be discretionary. Would that become a problem?

Dr Kemal said that right now the federal government thrusts projects on the provinces. If the Devolution Plan is implemented will this continue? If not, we should come up with a fiscal autonomy plan for the provinces / districts.

Dr Inayatullah
Dr Inayatullah said that the Local Government Plan 2000, if implemented as proposed, will for the first time in Pakistan’s history give a major percentage in elected bodies to women.

  He said that we had inherited a flawed system of administration from the British and have never been able to improve it while India had managed to do so.

Colonial preference, said Dr Inayatullah, was for lower levels of government to have some powers but not the higher levels. If the present regime continues with this system, we would remain extremely vulnerable.

On partyless polls, he said that we have had so many polls in the past on party basis so why not now? Parties now exist at the village level; having party-based elections would help break down the ‘biradari system’ (clan-based elections).