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Performance of District Government Chitral
After spending tenure of more than four years, the second term of
District Government ended with a question for public about its
performance and achievements. At the outset, the conceptual
foundation of the system was challenged by many intellectuals
particularly those who oppose every political initiative designed
by military governments. The local bodies play key role in
development and governance at local level in developed countries
where decentralization of authorities have empowered the people
with regard to their participation in decision making process.
Unfortunately, in most of the developing countries, the initiatives
taken for improving local government and devolvement of powers to
lower tiers of state institutions have been less successful. The
reasons include lack of financial resources, improper institutional
infrastructure and non-accommodating attitude of bureaucracy.
Instead of devolution and decentralization, most of such
initiatives appeared to be de-concentrated process where only
responsibilities were shifted to the lower tier and transfer of
authorities and resources remained an undone agenda.
In this context, the overall performance of the District Government
in Chitral has been above average. The service delivery part of the
system has not worked very well. While coping up with the new
system, the line departments faced a number of constraints
including political polarization, lack of financial resources and
limited institutional capacity. Nevertheless, this system enhanced
the political development process and people and their elected
representatives felt empowered while voicing their concerns in the
relevant forums such as District and Tehsil Councils. The District
Nazim, as head of District Government, participated in decision
making process regarding critical issues of governance and
development in the district. The constituents may not be happy with
the performance of their representatives, but they must remember
that in the new system they had very easy access to their
representatives as compared to the old governing structure where
they followed a long queue to meet the deputy commissioner who
owned the second powerful office after Prime Minster of Pakistan.
Despite a number of financial, administrative and political
constraints, the elected representatives worked hard at all levels
and tried to deliver the maximum but both individual and
institutional capacity remained one of the bottlenecks. The
District Government remained successful in managing a huge
diversity in terms of religious, regional and political association
of the elected members. The political differences between federal
and provincial government in Pervez Musharaf era also affected the
performance of the district government adversely. The District
Government also tried to generate some revenue by introducing local
tax to finance some crucial activities, but due to public pressure
and non-conducive regulatory framework of provincial government, it
was not materialized. Even exceeding its mandate, the District
Government approached to multilateral and bilateral donors for
supporting long-term development projects in the region. If not
mismanaged by executing agency and the Norwegian embassy, the CIADP
would be a remarkable contribution of the District Government. As
compared to other district, District Government in Chitral
encouraged women participation in political and development
affairs. As a result the women representatives were successful in
identifying and (to some extent) addressing the women specific
problems in Chitral.
The experience of Chitral shows that the system should continue
with some modifications in the local government ordinance. The
efforts made by the incumbent government to reverse the process
would not only affect the political process adversely but
discourage the new generation of political leadership. This will
ultimately contribute to persistent problem of political
instability in the country.
Sherzad Ali Hyder
Islamabad
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