18th Amendment: concerns voiced over provinces' reluctance to devolve power

A parliamentary body on Monday expressed serious concerns over the provinces' unwillingness to transfer powers devolved to them under the 18th Constitutional Amendment to districts level. While chairing a meeting of the sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet, Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi regretted that 18th Constitutional Amendment transferred huge powers to the provinces but they (provinces) are unwilling to devolve powers to local governments at district level.
"No province is ready to transfer its powers to division and district level," added the chairman of the committee. He further stated that provinces' reluctance to transfer powers to the local tier is against the spirit of the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
The meeting met with major agenda items with regard to non-observance of provincial quota in civil, armed and other services of federal government. The secretary establishment acknowledged that quota was not properly observed as per requirement. The senators and chairman stated the federal government needs to address the problems of federating units to make the federation stronger.
They also emphasised that share provided to the federating units in the Constitution must be respected, adding that violation of provincial quota in the services of federal government increases people's grievances and urged that this practice must be rectified to lessen the grievances of the people of Sindh and Balochistan.
The secretary establishment stated that since August 14, 2013, determination of quota policy has been expired, however, the federal government is still observing the previous quota policy. Secretary Establishment Dr Ejaz said that objective of the process to recompile data is to verify not only accurate number of employees in services of federal government but is also to verify whether or not the appointments were made on domiciles. He added that so far recruitment data has been received from 22 divisions. He said that this exercise will be completed as soon as possible.
He said that under the appointment and promotion rules, the role of establishment Division is of databank only. However, he said that this is also a fact that quota was not properly observed in services being provided by the federal government and acknowledged that marked non-observance is in civil armed forces where Sindh and Balochistan provinces are relatively less represented.
The meeting was told that total number of employees of the federal government is 581,000 including 189,000 employees of civil armed forces and if personnel of civil armed forces are excluded, the share of Sindh province in the quota is 17.71 percent and that of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 11.70 percent but if personnel of civil armed forces are included, the share of KP in the quota increases to 24.17 percent and Sindh's share becomes 13.93 percent.