Daily Times

Is local governance the solution to Pakistan’s crisis? The only solution to Pakistan’s existential issue is dynamic, powerful, and independent local governments. While the harsh phrase “existential crisis” may not sit well with certain readers, let it be clear that Pakistan’s primary crisis is its very survival; other crises, such as judicial, governance, fiscal, or name anyone, are all controllable. Pakistan must move forward with the restoration of local government institutions and student unions, as both can serve as nurseries for political and administrative leadership. The irony is that, over time, successive governments have failed to offer public services such as free and high-quality healthcare, education, and so on, eroding public trust in them.

Government after government has continued to take a top-down approach, which means that the fate of Rajanpur streets would be decided by someone in a nice room in Lahore or Islamabad. There has been no public-private partnership in human-development policies. Installing local councils under Supreme Court pressure is not enough; they must be economically and administratively autonomous. The greatest way to grant local governments budgetary power is to restructure the National Finance Commission, and fiscal devolution and limiting laws could result in genuine devolved councils. Local councils are frowned upon by political parties because they deprive MPAs and MNAs of public cash, and development plans, and make a councillor more influential. Poverty breeds poverty, which is mostly a rural issue that is both directly and indirectly linked to the lack of local authorities. Pakistan has 79 million poor people, with 70 million of them living in villages. Local governments cannot be established due to opposition from political parties that lack linkages with grassroots leadership, and the system favours the status quo.

We should learn from the Chinese and Korean poverty-reduction models, in which village councils were given the power to tackle local problems through a powerful, rigorous delivery structure. He also emphasised changes to local government rules, claiming that bureaucracy and politicians worked together to undercut local governments. Local governments should have varied representation, yet the terms diversity and inclusion are frowned upon in our corner of the world. As a result, the amount of development in different areas varies. A Christian neighbourhood in any part of Pakistan appears to be from the Stone Age, and local government councils, as the third layer of government, can serve to alleviate public problems. *