The 18th Amendment in the constitution of Pakistan was carried out to allow more autonomy to the provinces, give them bigger share in the finances and facilitate law making with an ultimate aim of improving governance and service delivery at the grassroots level. The spirit behind the amendment is highly appreciable in itself, however, a plethora of problems have been popping up at the execution level ever since the constitutional amendment was enforced.
The Covid-19 outbreak has tested the governance and systems around the world for their practicability and effectiveness, exposing many so-called best systems and thrashing many myths. Best democratic systems like that of the US and UK have also failed to deliver an effective response due to lack of cohesion between central governments, states and the local governments, while centralized system like that of China has proved extremely effective in policy execution and implementation. The pandemic in Pakistan and the situation arising out of the crisis has also laid bare the fault lines in the governance and financial arenas, thus necessitating a genuine discussion to revisit the arrangements and improve those according to the ground realities.
The 18th Amendment is once again under the spotlight as the federal and provincial governments have used it as a basis for debating and arguing over their different approaches towards the coronavirus pandemic. Lack of coordination between federal government and the provincial government in Sindh has been noticed with concern by a large section of the society. Serious gaps in food supply chains, law and order, provision and availability of PPEs and essential medical equipment and provision of financial and food aid to the poor and the needy have frustrated the already worried citizens. The discussions and media war on whether to impose or not to impose the lockdown and when to soften or lift it further muddied the waters. This gap has also sent ill signals about national response to a collective challenge in Pakistan.
Irrespective of the opposition’s thinking about 18th Amendment, all political and governance actors do understand that there are identified gaps in the 7th NFC Award, which allows 57% of the financial share to the provinces. Response capacity and performance of especially the provincial government in Sindh has reflected a huge gap while focusing mainly on the perception management through media tricks.
Now when the incumbent PTI government has reconstituted the commission for the 9th NFC Award, discussions have started about rebalancing the resources among the four provinces The federal government is performing a large number of functions which are otherwise the responsibility of the provincial governments. This includes matters relating to public health, drugs, dams, education, public projects in provinces, labour, environment, locusts and many other trans-provincial activities, which fall in the domain of the provinces but had to be performed by federal government. All these activities cost a huge sum. Likewise, the constitution although requires financing and functioning of local governments, yet they have no direct available of funds. The 18th Amendment was a step in right direction, but the process is incomplete yet with a lot a flaws as it gave huge powers to the provincial governments but the local governments are still powerless. The next NFC Award should reflect these important aspects.
The federation and the provinces need to agree to a balanced approach to find a solution. The provincial share in the NFC Award can be equitably divided into three portions, specified as provincial government’s share, local government’s share and federal government’s share for the works done by it on the behalf of the provinces. However, the coming NFC Award needs to address these all-important issue through mutual agreement. There is also a requirement for check and balance as how Centre and the provinces use their share, not allowing any free lunches to either of them. This aspect can better be addressed through transparency and enacting necessary regulations.
Last year, President Alvi had hinted at possible changes to the 18th Amendment but ruled out any possibility of it being revoked. The president had said that the amendment could be modified for improvements but only with consensus among all federating units. He had called for capacity building of the provinces, saying that improvements are direly required in governance and reforms, particularly in the taxation system. In a bid to make changes to the much-debated 18th Amendment and the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, the federal government has already contacted several political parties and has reportedly been able to get some support on the issue.
The 18th Amendment as well as the NFC Award should be revisited so that the balance of power could be streamlined. Certain powers need to come back to the Centre because public looks towards Islamabad in the wake of any crisis, despite all major areas like education, health and agriculture being the provincial subjects. Similarly, the business community also looks towards the federal government despite industries being a devolved subject. The federal budget is discussed in the media the most with a lot of expectations of the people connected with it despite main components of the budget being associated with the provinces. How it can be viable that the Centre continues to feed the provinces through NFC Award and the provinces enjoy the funds with complete autonomy but ‘hide’ at the time of service delivery because all performance indicators lie towards the federal government in the media as well as at the time of the general elections.
Rationalizing the things is the need of the hour. Problems cannot be resolved until the federal and provincial governments work in coordination. All the political parties need to sit together to discuss the issue and bring out a workable situation in the supreme interest of this country. The clock is ticking.