Punjab’s struggle with devolution

Since colonial times, provincial local governments have been the foundation and doorstep of the delivery of social and municipal services. In Punjab, despite being burdened with a broad scope of responsibilities, local government has gradually become the weakest tier of governance over the past few decades.

The list of expectations from local governments is quite long: from managing the transfer of funds to community-based organisations, exercising control over land use and zoning, managing assets, including leasing and renting out properties, to providing municipal services and infrastructure development.

Successive provincial legislation in Punjab, comprising PLGO 2001, PLGA 2013, PLGA 2019 and PLGA 2022, have postulated for assigning incremental responsibilities to local governments without considering their financial, technical and administrative capacity and capability.

The ecosystem governing the capacity development of local government seems to have taken a heavy tilt towards the provincial government instead of adopting a balanced approach. The neglect of local government capacity, spanning decades, not only led to diminishing capacity in the face of governance challenges but also provided the provincial government with justifiable reasons to create parallel structures – all in the name of lack of capacity and need for effective governance.

The case may be built on the historic devolution under the PLGO 2001, which was gradually rolled back in the name of capacity constraints. Whether it was the availability of experienced engineers for designing large-scale schemes or that of qualified town planners, local governments inevitably lost both their mandate and operational control to provincial entities. Institutional weaknesses not only persisted but also enabled strategic encroachment on the functioning of local governments.

Another example of institutionalised space creation can be found in the PLGA 2013, which allowed metropolitan and municipal corporations to entrust any of their functions to a person, authority, agency, or company through a contractual agreement. However, a Services and Asset Management Agreement (SAMA) was signed between the Lahore Waste Management Company and the City District Government Lahore (CDGL), along with all Town Municipal Administrations (TMAs) of Lahore, well before the enactment of this legislation.

Interestingly, the SAMA signed at the time between the aforementioned entities highlighted the capabilities of local governments regarding solid waste management in Lahore. For the CDGL, it stated: “The CDGL desires to improve the system of Solid Waste Management in the City, and the CDGL finds its existing organisational capability inadequate to achieve intended results to protect public health, safety, and welfare through comprehensive and integrated Solid Waste Management...”

Likewise, for other local governments in the city, it stated: “...the TMAs in City District Lahore have certain functions to perform in respect of Solid Waste Management but lack the organisational capability to perform those functions. And hence they deem it expedient in the public interest to exclusively entrust those functions to the LWMC for purposes of efficiency, economy, and effectiveness in performance of those functions.”

The LWMC and its subsequent divisional-level clones reflect a form of provincial interventionism unique to Punjab, thriving on provincial funding to secure all resources required for solid waste management. Not only were the existing funds of local governments diverted, but new funds were also made available to the LWMC. Human resources were recruited, machinery was purchased, and services were procured in the name of technical expertise.

Loans from public funds were incurred for waste management, and the provincial government, without recovering the previously disbursed loans, continued to finance the growing demands of the waste management companies. To this day, these companies conveniently function as entrusted entities of local governments without being answerable to them.

One wonders what improvements in service delivery might have been achieved had the resources made available to the LWMC instead been provided to the CDGL and the TMAs. Another pertinent question concerns the independence of the contractual arrangements between local governments and waste management companies: despite being legally empowered, can a local government choose not to enter into a SAMA with its respective waste management company?

The Parks and Horticulture Authority is another example where functions of local governments, albeit with an enhanced scope, have been entrusted to the authority through provincial legislation – the Parks and Horticulture Authority Act 2012. The subsequently enacted local government law PLGA 2013 creates an exception in the functions of metropolitan corporations and municipal corporations, which would regulate the affixing of signboards and advertisements, except where the authority was performing this function. Local governments of intermediate cities, however, continue to perform the majority of the functions otherwise performed by parks and horticulture authorities in municipal corporations. Residents of the intermediate cities of the province can certainly hope to wait and benefit from the expertise of similar authorities.

We contend that the public narrative of questionable capacity of local governments is itself questionable as a pretext for creating parallel structures and entities accountable to the provincial government instead of local governments. While these newly created provincially controlled entities receive relatively more resources, the local governments of the province experience spasms of resource suffocation.

Article 140-A of the constitution must be the guiding force for creating local governments with political, administrative and financial autonomy. However, Punjab is a case of centralisation and decentralisation instead of devolution of power.

Weak structures and fragmented governance across Punjab inevitably result from not empowering local government in a constitutionally mandated manner. With overlapping mandates, authorities, companies and departments at the district level continue to create and deepen fragmentation despite the need for a strong local governance system.

The principle of subsidiarity has gradually lost its place in governance due to the frequently cited weak capacity and capability of local governments. To build citizens’ trust in the state system, their local representatives must be empowered through meaningful and effective participation in governance.

But first, we must acknowledge the deliberate policy choices that have undermined local governance in Punjab. In the absence of empowered local institutions – regrettably so for many stakeholders – the political and administrative dispensation of the province must be reconsidered and remodelled to meet the needs of its residents.

The writer is a public policy analyst based in Lahore.He can be reached at: hamidmasud@gmail.com