POLITICAL REFORMS:District, Tehsil, Functions of Union Council, Fiscal Reforms

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Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

LESSON 42

POLITICAL REFORMS

In this lecture we will examine the Political reforms, Administrative structure and Financial

arrangements (PFC) in greater detail.

Political Reforms

Elctoral Arrangements: The foundation of the electoral structure for the three tiers of local

government is the union council. The union is a multimember ward for the election of members of the

union council that is, each constituency is on average 25,000, and each union council is composed of 21

directly elected members. The nazim and naib nazim (mayor and deputy mayor) are elected on a joint ticket.

The remaining 19 seats are, as discussed in last lecture, as following:

12 Muslim seats, 4 of which are reserved for women;

6 seats for peasants and workers of which 2 are reserved for women;

1 seat for minority communities;

Indirect Elections

The nazim of the union council then becomes member of district council and naib nazim of union

council becomes members of tehsil council.

The union councilors constitute the Electoral College for the district or tehsil councilors and for

the district and tehsil nazim and naib nazim. 1/3 of seats are reserved for women (directly elected at union

council level and elected by Electoral College of Union Councilors at tehsil and district level).

Figure 1

Indirect Elections

Tehsil Nazim

Naib Nazim

2/3

1/3

Union Naib Nazims

Union Nazims

Indirectly

(Ex Officio)

Elected

Zila Council

Tehsil Council

Union Nazim

Naib Nazim

Peasants

Min

General Seats

(6)

(1)

(12)

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In addition 5 percent of district and tehsil seats have been reserved for peasants (in rural

constituencies) or workers (in urban areas), and 5 percent for minorities. Thus overall districts council and

tehsil council are made up of about 2/3 directly elected members and 1/3 indirectly elected including nazim

and naib nazim. The size of district and tehsil councils varies according to the number of union councils

within district. Each tier of local government has a term of office of 4 years, with 2 term limit for nazimeen

and naib nazimeen. The indirect elections system is illustrated in Figure 1.

District

There is a departure from convention and in the Devolution Plan, at district level representation of

marginalized groups is intentionally designed in the election. Thus, there are 33 % seats for women in the

District Council. Similarly 5% seats are for workers and 5% for minorities.

In order to have better quality of elected representative a condition of matriculation/secondary

school has been kept.

Tehsil

Likewise for better representation of marginalized groups following seats are kept at Tehsil level:

33% women seats

5% for workers/peasants

5% for minorities

Qualification of at least matriculation / Secondary certificate or Equivalent.

Each tier of local government has a term of office of four years, with a two-term limit for nazimeen

and naib nazimeen at all levels of government .

Functions of Union Council

We have discussed the functions of district council. And we have also discussed the function of

Tehsil council. Union Councils as we know are the lowest local unit in rural areas (the lowest unit in urban

area is town committee. A Union Council as we know has a population of 25,000 performs following

functions:

1. Municipal function is the function of sewerage and sanitation i.e. cleanliness of area.

2. Finance: Performs financial function of managing expenditures and rousing revenues.

3. Pubic safety: Managing bridges, culvert etc.

4. Health: Provision of basic preventive health care, like controlling epidemics etc.

5. Education: Provision of basic primary education.

6. Literacy: Literacy programmes for adults who were unable to receive primary education.

7. Justice: Provision of justice in civil cases through "masalihat Councils"

In addition Union Council also performs following functions:

a. Undertake development projects in connection with above mentioned functions.

b. Impose taxes, to fund annual development plan. The proposed revenue raising authority of

Union Council is: fee for licensing of professions and vocations, fee on sale of animals in cattle

market, market fee, fee for certification of births, marriages and deaths etc.

c. Local securities system-union guards

d. Creation of villager council, citizen like community boards.

Structure within local government

We have discussed the administrative structure of local government in the last lecture and it was

mentioned that the executive branch of each district government has 10 to 14 departments, The DCO, the

highest-ranking civil servant in the district, heads the District Coordination department. An Executive

District officer (EDO) heads each of the remaining departments. The staff at district and tehsil level was

mentioned. In addition three groups of employees were assigned to the new district governments. These

were:

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1. Federal employment groups, primarily District management Group (DMG) and the Audit and

Accounts Group.

2. Former rural district council employees; and

3. Provincial employment groups, particularly Public health. Engineering Department (PHED)

Rural Development, Local Government, health and Education.

A large majority of district staff formerly belonged to the provincial employment group, particularly

education. Most are in grades 1-15 (90% of district staff in NWFP and 83% in Sindh) Tehsil Municipal

Administration (TMA) inherited staff from the former urban council and rural district council and also

some provincial PHED staff where these have been devolved.

Fiscal Reforms

Areas of expenditure responsibility of the federal and provincial governments are set out in the

Constitution of Pakistan as mentioned before. The Constitution is silent on the remaining functions

(functions other than federal and provincial government) and assumes by default that these remaining

functions are to be performed by the sub-national (that is, provincial or local) governments.

Thus, according to the Constitution, the federal government is responsible for foreign affairs,

defense, banking and currency, postal service, transportation (ports, airports, railways), while the main

provincial responsibilities are police services, justice, roads, education and health.

The actual assignment of functions remained much more centralized than the Constitutional

provisions required, as higher levels of government played a dominant role in areas of shared responsibility

The Constitution accepts that the actual or implied assignments of expenditures and revenues will

lead to vertical fiscal imbalances between the upper two levels of government (Federal & Provincial) which

are to be resolved through revenue sharing. Thus, the Constitution also sets up the National Finance

Commission, an institution assigned the task of determining appropriate revenue sharing arrangements

among the federal and provincial governments.

Table 1 shows the responsibilities of province, District and Tehsil governments.

Table - 1

Province

District

Tehsil, Taluka, or Town

Education

Health

Agriculture

Agriculture extension

On-farm management

Soil conservation

Fisheries

Forests

Water Supply and

water supply and sanitation

Sanitation

sewerage

Sewerage

transport

Transport

inter tehsil road

Street lighting

Parks and playground

Parks and playgrounds

Street light

Municipal regulation

Irrigation

Police

Mines and mineral

Development

Industrial and labor

Regulation

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Under Devolution Plan, there were no shifts of responsibility from the federal to the provincial

governments. The initial attempt was to bring about changes that would not require any constitutional

amendment, which the devolution of any function to the local governments from the Federal Legislative

List (or even the Concurrent List) would have required.

As the previous table indicates, significant functional transfers did occur from provincial to local

governments.

Federal-provincial

In Pakistan, revenue sharing is the dominant form of federal-provincial fiscal relations. The main

source of provincial revenues is a transfer based on a share of federal tax collections. The decision on the

list of taxes ("divisible pool"), the ratio of the provincial-federal share of the pool and the formula for its

distribution to the provinces is to be fixed at least once every five years by the National Finance

Commission (NFC). This has been discussed in the topic Public Finance.

ProvincialLocal Transfer

All the four provincial government share resources with district governments. Just as there is

Federal Divisible Pool, there is Provincial Divisible Pool. This Pool comprise: transfer from federal divisible

pool, straight transfers from federal government and provincial tax revenue. Sindh PFC estimates the shares

of provincial and district government for both current and development expenditure. The Sindh PFC

decided that for current expenditure, the Provincial Divisible Pool comprises:

Federal divisible pool transfer

Federal straight transfers

Provincial tax revenue

The transfers to districts were based on gap between district expenditure and revenue transfers

from provincial government to districts on the basis of population, tax collection and backwardness index

of districts.

Now we will examine the weaknesses and strengths (success) of Devolution Plan and Local

Government Ordinance 2000.

We will first look at the weaknesses and then strengths. Some of the weaknesses of the local

government system are:

1. An attempt to undermine provincial autonomy. The provinces now have to systematically

evolve mechanism to share resources. Also prior to this system, provinces were autonomous

and had centralized system. People from remove areas in the provinces had no access to

provincial headquarters.

2. Violation of a fundamental structure of constitution. The Constitution does not provide

local government structure.

3. Resistance of bureaucracy against system. The power of bureaucracy has weakness and at

the district level DCO is answerable to elected nazim.

4. Role of members of legislative assembly. The members of legislature have greater role in the

development of the area and more answerable to people.

Some of the strengths of the system are:

1. Unleashed horse of bureaucracy has been bridled. The office of DC has been now

brought under the control of elected representative.

2. Elimination of urban-rural division. Attempt has been made to reduce the gap between

urban and rural areas.

3. Formula - based division of financial resources. The PFC now has to share resources under

a formula, which is logical and appropriate.

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4. Grass root organizations. The local government system has established grass root

organizations like citizen community board to oversea the working of government

organization.

5. Enhanced representation of women.

6. Political linkage

7. Autonomy of local Representatives

Conclusions

Examined local government structure and functions in greater detail.

Also examined the weaknesses and strengths of local government.

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