20000324

ASIF FAROOQI

ISLAMABAD: Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday unfolded the structural details of the proposed district governments in the country with main emphasis on the financial and administrative autonomy to the three tier elected institutions and doing away with the present divisional set-up with all its administrative logistics.

Addressing a press conference at the Chaghai Auditorium of the Pakistan Television, General Musharraf deliberated upon the issue to which he referred as 'Devolution of power and responsibilities - establishing the foundation of democracy' for more than two hours. "What I am dealing with today is the fundamental tier of democracy from where we will move upwards to provincial and national levels in due course of time," he added.

Genral Musharraf made it clear that the elected institutions at union, tehsil and district levels would be totally and absolutely free of provincial and federal controls in fiscal and administrative decision-making. "These will be free to impose or lift any taxes or take any other decision concerning their own affairs," General Musharraf said while referring to the scope of autonomy these governments are likely to enjoy.

According to the details as have been worked out by the National Reconstruction Bureau, Musharraf told newsmen that the first and the basic elected institution of these governments would be the union councils. Consisting of 26 members these Councils would be elected through direct adult franchise using multiple member ward system. Directly elected Chairman of the UC will be an obvious member of the district assmebly. The UC would be composed of 16 general, eight workers/peasants and two minorities seats. Women would have equal representation in these institutions. Members of the UC would be form monitoring committees and community boards in the town and cities for monitoring functions of all the lower level government departments like hospitals, schools, transport and irrigations. The UC members representing a particular village will constitute a village council.

District level structure will mainly consist of a district assembly (DA) of direcly elected members, a directly elected chief mayor and deputy chief mayor, district administration and district police. There would be 66 members in the DA elected on 50 general, 10 women, three workers and peasants and three minorites seats. Like National Finance Award, a provincial finance commission will be formed to work out provincial finance award for allocations of funds for the district governments. Moreover, the DA would have all the powers of imposing taxes in their territory for additional revenue generation and making enough allocations for any specific project during the independent budget making process for the district.

All the executive and administrative authority at the district level would be laid with the office of the chief mayor (CM), who is supposed to be a directly elected member of the DA with a minimum of 51 percent votes. Deputy Commissioner, who would be titled as the District Coordination Officer (DCO), Superintendent of Police and all the heads of the government departments would be reporting to the CM. DCO and SP would be appointed on the recommendation of the CM with the approval of DA simple majority and removal of these district officers would require ratification by two-thirds majority of the DA.

Speaker of the DA would hold the title of Deputy Chief Mayor (DCM) and would act as CM in his absence.

General Musharraf said with the establishment of a comprehensive elected government at the district level, the present division would cease to exist.

Tehsil Councils (TCs) would have 34 members elected on 25 general seats, five on women and two each on workers and minority seats. The TC would act a bridge between the urban and rural areas. Bigger cities would be run as city districts with many district and tehsil council representation rural and urban population. Capacity of the judges at the district levels would be increased with the revival of conciliatory courts at union council level to pre-empt litigation of cases. Special courts would be set up to deal with the crimes against women.

To make this system workable, the Chief Executive announced a number of steps including lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. He said elections at the DA and UC levels would be held strictly on no-party basis without any education compulsions for the candidates. He said the government was still working out on the proposal for minorities given a separate electorate but a final decision was yet to be made.

Specifying the timeframe for holding elections for these institutions the Chief Executive said first phase of elections (at union councils level) would be completed within six months time starting from December this year. In the second stage, he said the government would go for district administration elections country-wide in July 2001 and the governments at the district level will be put in place by 14th August 2001. He said all these elections would be held on the basis of new, accurate and computerised electoral rolls which are being prepared with the assistance of National Data and Registration Authority (NADRA).

Praising the efforts of NRB for the preparing autonomous government structure at the lowest level, the Chief Executive said one thing should be kept in mind that Pakistan is a federation, therefore, the principles of federalism shall remain the central guiding principle of public policy. "Thus devolution of power will have to proceed from the federal to the provincial level and only thereafter to the districts which will remain within a provincial framework," he added.

He said for long too long and too much authority has been concentrated in Islamabad and the entire administration system has been distorted and disfigured. "So extreme has been the interference by the federal government in local affairs that there have been several instances in which elected prime ministers have personally approved the selection of specific persons as SHOs of police stations," he said.

He made it clear that these elected institutions were not substitutes of provincial, national assemblies or Senate, neither these were going to be used as an electoral college for other levels. He said that let there be no doubt that the general elections would take place but in due course of time.

Further explaining various aspects of the district government plan in response to numerous questions posed by the reporters, the general said that the corrupt and dirty political elite would not be allowed to be a part of this system again and he will ensure that the politicians who have been involved in corruption are disqualified during the process of electoral reforms which would be completed before December this year.

He agreed to the notion that the system and pattern of civil services is certainly going to be disturbed with the introduction of district governments but added that his government was still working on the issue as to how to adjust these officers in the new system of governance.