EDITORIAL: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s observation that Pakistan’s governance system has effectively “collapsed” will find few serious dissenters.
Years of administrative paralysis, weak public service delivery and institutional dysfunction have left ample evidence that the existing model is failing. His accompanying proposal to create new provinces and administrative units has therefore reopened one of Pakistan’s oldest constitutional or political debates.
Yet before the country redraws provincial boundaries – if it must – it must first answer a more fundamental question: is the size of the provinces really the bigger problem, or is it the way they are governed?
There is certainly merit in debating whether Pakistan will eventually require more provinces. Smaller administrative units can, under the right circumstances, bring government closer to citizens, improve service delivery and make governance more responsive.
Many countries have reorganised their internal structures over time as populations expanded and administrative demands grew more complex. There should, therefore, be no objection to discussing the issue openly and seriously.
The difficulty begins when new provinces are presented as though they constitute the central solution to Pakistan’s governance crisis.
The country’s greatest failure since the 18th Constitutional Amendment has not just been insufficient devolution in reality from Islamabad to the provinces.
It has also been the unwillingness of provincial governments to devolve meaningful political, administrative and financial authority to local governments. That was, after all, one of the principal objectives behind removal of the concurrent list from the constitution and devolution itself: to bring decision-making as close to the citizen as possible.
Instead, provinces largely became repositories of powers that were never meaningfully passed on to the grassroots. That reluctance is hardly accidental.
Every transfer of authority to genuinely empowered local governments also transfers budgets, patronage and political influence. Few provincial administrations, regardless of political affiliation, have shown much enthusiasm for surrendering those powers.
Local government elections are delayed, financial authority remains centralised and municipal institutions continue operating with limited autonomy. It is, therefore, difficult to argue that creating additional provinces would automatically improve governance when the existing provinces have themselves resisted meaningful decentralisation.
There is an irony here that deserves acknowledgement. The period during which Pakistan arguably witnessed its strongest and most empowered local government system came under General Pervez Musharraf.
Whatever one’s views of military rule, local governments during that period exercised considerably greater administrative and financial authority than they have under successive elected governments. That uncomfortable reality raises difficult questions about the commitment of democratic governments to one of democracy’s most important foundations: governance at the grassroots.
Nor has the advocacy for more provinces sufficiently addressed the causes of today’s paralysis. Administrative inefficiency, bureaucratic red tape, political interference, weak accountability and entrenched corruption have steadily undermined governance across the federation. Those problems do not disappear simply because provincial boundaries are redrawn.
The same bureaucracy, the same administrative culture and many of the same political incentives would continue operating within smaller jurisdictions unless broader institutional reforms precede any constitutional restructuring.
Practical considerations also deserve attention. Creating new provinces would require constitutional amendments, broad political consensus, complex negotiations over assets, liabilities, civil services, revenue distribution and administrative infrastructure.
At a time when provinces themselves continue struggling with law and order, fiscal management, poorly funded education, healthcare and local administration, embarking upon such an ambitious restructuring would inevitably consume enormous political energy while offering no guarantee that the underlying governance failures would actually be resolved.
None of this means the proposal should be dismissed outright. Pakistan may well require additional provinces in the future as demographic and administrative pressures continue to grow.
But; sequencing matters. The priority today should be to complete the unfinished business of devolution by genuinely empowering local governments, strengthening administrative accountability, reforming the bureaucracy, and improving provincial governance. Only then can the country properly assess whether further constitutional restructuring remains necessary.
The interior minister is spot on insofar as his recommendation that the present system requires serious reform is concerned.
The question is whether Pakistan is confronting the real source of its dysfunction or merely proposing to redraw the map before fixing the machinery that has failed to make the existing one work.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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