Provinces criticised for not holding LG elections

"No provincial government has evolved any legal framework for devolving the administrative, political and fiscal authority from provinces to districts as enshrined in the Article 140-A (1) of the Constitution. Landmark changes have been occurred with the adoption of 18th Amendment and provinces are bound to undertake decentralisation process and devolve powers at structural, administrative and fiscal levels."
These views were expressed by representatives of Rural Development Policy Institute (RDPI) on Local Governance in joint press conference at Lahore Press Club on Sunday.
RDPI Co-ordinator on Local Governance, Khaliq Shah said it is clearly stated in the Article 140-A (1) that "Each Province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments."
He said that local government elections would fail to deliver the dividends of 18th Amendment in the absence of the much-needed legal framework.
The Supreme Court has ordered the provinces to submit their schedules for local government elections by April 30, 2012 to realise Article 32 and 140-A of the Constitution.
He welcomed the SC step and reminded the major political parties of historic commitment made under the "Charter of Democracy" to hold party-based local elections within six months. He also requested the Apex court to review 26 petitions of various natures, pending with the four High Courts.
RDPI Principal Co-ordinator, Abdul Shakoor said that LG elections were due since 2009. But provincial governments already wasted four years! After the passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment, the local governance is now a provincial subject, however, none of the provincial governments has announced even schedule to hold the elections.
He said, "It is matter of great concern that provinces still want to continue violation of the Constitution by not obeying the SC orders. For instance Sindh and Balochistan governments told SC that the law and order situation was not conducive to hold LG elections. The Punjab government, however, indicated that it might hold elections by August but refused to commit itself any further. Yet the issue at the heart is failure of the provincial governments to evolve a legal framework to devolve administrative, political and fiscal authority to districts. He urged the political parties and provincial governments to legislate on local governance through wider consensus on priority basis before going for LG elections" he added
He also expected that there should be no excuse this time on the part of provinces to further delay the LG polls. He also hoped that no effort would be made to hide behind the usual excuse of "incomplete" electoral rolls, Shakoor added.
Executive Director Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) said the real reason behind the chronic avoidance to hold LG elections is that major parties feel threatened that space and influence might be ceded to rivals if local government` elections are held, and their own hold will be diluted. Thus, "the matter is kept on the back burner. Yet the reality is that people's problems are actually addressed by representatives of local government institutions, who are on the spot. In their absence, the people can only look to members of the national and provincial assemblies, who are hardly accessible, added Bushra. She further said in the entire country there are 6138 union councils, 63 Town Administrations, 358 Tehsil administrations and 8 City district governments being denied representation in the development process for the last four years, which is sheer violation of the Constitution. Regardless of their concerns, it is important that the local government` polls are held at the earliest if power is to be devolved to the grass-roots, she added.