Provincial Autonomy is the buzz word nowadays. The Federal government is talking about “granting” it to the provinces. A draft provincial autonomy bill is being drafted at the Center. The Sindh Chief Minster is planning a conference on provincial autonomy on March 4th 2007 .The National Reconstruction Bureau is working on it. In short, the world and his uncle is discussing it.
But are they? Can provincial autonomy be “given?” Will a new law or another conference change the fact that deliberately a federal structure is not been given the space to function? Or are we too pessimistic as Aqil Sajjad points out or too superficial as Dr. Navita Mahajan puts it?
Our submission is that if there was serious intent behind all this discussion , why aren’t the existing mediating mechanisms ( essential for conflict resolution in any federal structure) like the Council of Common Interest and the National Finance Commission not empowered ? The Feb individu-spotlight tries to touch upon the issue. Have a read….
Archive for the ‘Federalism in Pakistan’ Category
Of Federalism ….
Sunday, February 18th, 2007Provincial autonomy
Thursday, February 8th, 2007The Voice of America on our suggestion conducted an interesting roundtable discussion on provinical autonomy two days back . Amongst the speakers there was the the author of the upcoming Provincial Autonomy bill, Mr . Mujeeb Pirzada and the Federal Minister for Provincial Coordination, Mr. Saleem Saifullah .Both of them were engaged in an intense debate. Pretty interesting… check it out.. and let us know what you think.
Politics of net profits..
Friday, January 26th, 2007The Federally owned Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) needs to pay the North West Frontier Province Rs 11.4 billion in arrears and Rs 22 billion anually for its net profits from hydel generation. In November individu-spotlight , the details are worked out .. in fact there are some claims that the amount owned is even higher.
The matter has now gone to court which essentially means a delay… The reasons for this dilly dallying is quite interestingly articulated in this article by Rahimullah Yousafzai. The following aspect of the writer’s analysis is particularly interesting :
“Perhaps the president would want to give this precious gift of huge amount of money to his political allies once the elections are held and the PML manages to form a coalition government in the Frontier. Or special funds could be provided to the PML provincial president Amir Muqam and pro-Musharraf politicians such as Aftab Sherpao prior to the polls to make an impact on the electorate.”