Situationer: Problems ahead as Balochistan goes to LG polls on 29th

The Government of Balochistan on the directions of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is moving towards local government elections, on May 29, under the existing Balochistan Local Government Act 2010, without any amendments.

The elections will be held in 32 districts of the province except in Quetta and Lasbella districts. The local government polls can be extremely problematic for a number of reasons as the existing local government act seems to be pretty much against Article 140-A of the constitution. It talks about devolution of financial, administrative and political powers to the local governments in the province.

Secondly, the Balochistan High Court (BHC) has initiated a contempt of court proceedings and issued notices to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Secretary local government of Balochistan for refusing to make amends to the existing provincial local government act along the lines of Article 140-A of the constitution.

Balochistan’a district Pishin’s former elected chairman for the year 2014 to 2018, Muhammad Essa, shared how under the 2010 local government act they had no powers. “Even for the approval of funds, we had to seek permission of the district’s Divisional Committee Commissioner who is a bureaucrat,” he informed.

For this purpose, a few elected local government representatives filed a constitutional petition in the year 2015 against the provincial local government act in the BHC.

On October 10, 2017, the BHC issued notices to the then Chief Secretary Balochistan to submit a report on the matter. On November 27, 2017, the Additional Advocate General (AAG) of Balochistan was directed to submit a progress report signed by the then Chief Secretary in 30 days.

On March 19, 2018, the AAG submitted before the court that the final draft of the amended bill would be put before the then Balochistan cabinet and if it is approved it would be placed before the “forthcoming session of the provincial assembly.”

On October 16, 2018 the AAG submitted a report before the court saying that the previous cabinet had approved the proposed amendments, but the same couldn’t be placed before the provincial assembly because it had completed its tenure. The AAG said that the amended draft bill would be put before the new cabinet.

On November 13, 2018, the AAG was directed to produce before the court “specific statement” regarding approval of the cabinet of the local government bill and placing of bill before the provincial assembly.

On December 18, 2018 the AAG submitted before the court that the cabinet in its meeting had decided to constitute a committee to revisit the provisions of the existing local government act.

On July 18, 2019, the petitioner pleaded to initiate contempt proceedings against the then CM Balochistan Mir Jam Kamal as his cabinet made no progress for the amendments in the Balochistan Local Government Act, 2010.

Speaking to The News, incumbent AAG Balochistan Shai Haq Baloch said that if the local government elections are held according to the Balochistan Local Government Act, 2010, it would be contempt of court.

The incumbent CM and his cabinet, he said, are supposed to approve the amended draft and present it before the assembly before the elections. There are a total of 838 union councils in these 32 districts of Balochistan. The number of rural wards is 5,345 while there are 914 urban wards. There are seven municipal corporations and 50 municipal committees.

There’s only one metropolitan corporation in Balochistan which is Metropolitan Corporation Quetta (MCQ), while the other cities of the province have municipal corporations. The Quetta city has four subdivisions: City Tehsil, Saddar, Saryab and Kuchlag. The City Tehsil, Saddar and Saryab fall under the MCQ while Kuchlak fall under District Council which is not under but parallel to the MCQ. The District Councils comprise rural areas of any city. “Due to these parallel functions of the District Council and MCQ, several problems and confusions arise,” shared the AAG.

There are Municipal Corporations for the rest of the cities of Balochistan. Also in those cities, there are also Municipal Committees that are based on tehsil or subdivisions and run parallel to the Municipal Corporations.

The surrounding rural areas of these cities have their own District Councils. The Municipal Committees, Municipal Corporations and District Councils all run parallel to each other. An official of the MCQ shared with TNS how the garbage function rests with the MCQ, but the council or the mayor of the MCQ does not even have powers to award contract to any company to lift garbage without the approval of the provincial local government secretary. “The last elected council of Quetta inked an agreement with a private company for garbage management, but the provincial local government department rescinded that agreement,” the official said.

As for water and sanitation, there’s Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) in Quetta which is under the provincial government and has its own Managing Director and is independent of MCQ or any other elected council.

The Communication and Works department and Urban and Planning Department (UPD), which are under the provincial government and are responsible for the construction of roads, bridges and other infrastructure, they are also independent of any elected local council.

European Union’s (EU) Common Wealth Local Government Forum’s provincial coordinator Fatima Khan, who has extensively worked on the Balochistan Local Government Act, 2010, noted that they have proposed several amendments in the act to the Balochistan government.

She explained that the local councils cannot approve PC-1 of any project. So much so that an elected local council in Balochistan, she pointed out, does not even have bureaucrats to prepare their budget proposals. “They only have treasures and tax collectors,” she said.

As per the act, the budget passed by an elected local council has to be approved by the commissioner who is an appointed bureaucrat. “We have recommended the Balochistan government to abolish this binding from the law,” she explained.

There’s no mention of Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) in the provincial local government act. There’s an amount after tax collection that the federal government issues to the provinces and the provinces are supposed to disburse that amount to the district and local governments through the PFC.

The councils, according to Khan, receive funds from the provincial government in the form of grant and aid. Since the area of Balochistan is huge and its population is scattered, she said, the province’ share under NFC was supposed to increase yearly, which was to be translated into the PFC as well.

So, in order to carter the scattered population of Balochistan’s huge land area, there’s a need of infrastructure and road development, as well, which is only possible through the yearly increment of the PFC.

Unfortunately, she said, the Balochistan government is once again going into elections as per its old problematic local government act which would not sit well with its already deprived public.