A precarious voyage
Anwar Ahmad
The NRB's dream scheme has made an inauspicious start. With the old order ceasing to exist overnight and the new one not yet in place, administrative chaos has been reported from many places. Offices and assets were simply abandoned as the redundant officials knew not who to hand these over to. How much is lost in this extended twilight zone will only emerge over time.
As work came to a standstill and the harassed people found neither pillar nor post, some nazims were said to quarreling with the officials over such mundane matters as bungalows and cars. The nazims being ascendant, the unhappy and out-gunned officials are already finding things too hot handle. Whether this animus will dissolve into a healthy working relationship remains to be seen. On it will largely depend the smooth sailing of the new system.
Much of the chaos and ill will was, however, avoidable. Ideally, the restructured administration should have been in place at least three months before the advent of the nazims. This interregnum would have given the officialdom the autonomy coupled with specific responsibility to make a smooth changeover.
It would also have given the media the time and needed information to educate the people about the new stewards of their destiny. Much media time (and tax-payers' money) was spent on explaining the comparatively simple matter of voting for the councillors and nazims. But, amazingly, no effort was made to inform the people about the raft of new officials who would replace those they had known for over a century.
And, it takes some doing to get the new system through to the bewildered people. Try explaining, for example, to an unlettered yokel who from among the hordes of executive district officers, district officers, deputy district officers, tehsil municipal officers, ad infinitum could have the panacea for his pain. Or, more simply, who has replaced the deputy commissioner and the commissioner. Why the whole tamasha, he may ask at the end, if the devilish patwari and the fearsome SHO are still firmly in place?
Lacking the NRB's wisdom and foreign consultants, he cannot quite comprehend how, despite remaining grossly underpaid, these icons of extortion will suddenly turn into instruments of justice (at his doorstep) simply for fear of 'his' elected nazim. That he, the voter, now has his destiny in his own callused hands is too abstract a concept, and too often betrayed, to sound convincing.
While only performance can cure the cynicism, the current chaos is transient. How much of the blame for it lies with the inscrutable NRB and how much with the provincial bureaucracy, is now academic. But since the basic laws (the local government and police ordinances) spelling out the new system and its administrative details, were not promulgated almost until the zero hour, the bureaucracy can plead ignorance.
Even so, it could have foreseen and forestalled some of the chaos. But having been shunned by the NRB as the chief villain, the bureaucracy had no real incentive to be pro-active. And then, the whole mess was thrown onto its lap for implementation! How its antagonistic mindset settles over time will be one indication of where the new system is headed.
However, intricately intermeshed as the top (political) and bottom (administrative) layers of the new system may seem, the two will not necessarily be so in practice. They may not dance to the same tune, or could start dancing together but to the wrong tune. Neither a collision nor collusion between them would be healthy. Thus, the performance of these two layers will need to be observed jointly as well as separately.
The political overlay has been given supremacy on the indisputable premise that only the people's representative should shape their lives. Why this august principle is not applicable at the higher levels is a contradiction that has dogged the NRB from day one.
Of more immediate relevance, though, is the strong perception that, in many cases, the nazims were not really chosen by the people. The very moral foundation of people's supremacy has, thus, been knocked out from under the new system. It hasn't done the government's credibility any good either; and its echoes will doubtless reverberate as the higher political game plan unfolds.
Then, ensconcing the nazims in the same sprawling bungalows vacated by the colonial leftovers and, thus, initiating them into the same ruling culture seems to stab the very spirit of the change. The aim, after all, is not to replace one odious sahib with another less literate one. The country is, as the illiterate and malnourished masses are told, struggling to keep its head above the debt. Who, if not the "real democrats," will lead the overdue austerity drive? When, if not now, will the good times be over for the rulers?
What drama will unfold in the elected assemblies when they meet should be evident soon. Of particular interest will be the proceedings where the nazims were anointed from above and 'positive results' externally manufactured. Also riveting will be the exercise of the zila nazims' power to fire the tehsil nazims and the latter's to fire union nazims. All three being independently elected on their independent agendas, this hierarchical overlordship seems questionable. If the "checks and balances" are intended to infuse harmony, it may work in some cases. But it may also trigger interference and more conflict in others.
The interaction of the provinces and zila nazims (and assemblies) could also cut both ways. The provincial chief executive (presently the governor, but eventually the chief minister) can dismiss an errant district nazim. This could happen, for example, if the nazim of Nawabshah does not show due deference to Karachi or Islamabad. Or, if an MQM-PPP government in Sindh does not take kindly to the Jamaat-e-Islami nazim of Karachi.
But what if the province and some, if not all, nazims unite and cock a snook at Islamabad? Or, become partners in plunder? Experience suggests that such scenarios will emerge over time. How will Islamabad, then, whip a hundred unruly nazims and four provinces into line?
The political layer is, thus, far more complex and fragile than it may seem at present. Riddled as it is with many potential conflicts and monopolised as it is by much the same human material as had run amok previously, it could dissolve into chaos. And, particularly after serving its immediate political purpose, be downgraded or even folded up altogether as the previous local governments were.
How far down the road this happens, if it does, and whether the damage done would then be repairable, are the two main imponderables. This is where past experience contests NRB's wisdom most severely.
Beneath the political veneer, the restructured administration seems more durable. After wading through the maddening array of indistinguishable new nomenclatures (of which, no doubt, simpler vernacular versions will soon be coined), one finds the much needed unity of command. For the service delivery sector, most provincial departments will now report to the district coordination officer. If rightly guided by the nazims and funded by the provinces and assemblies/councils, the new structure should deliver such basics as cleaner cities, schools and hospitals and more, if left unmolested by the critical political overlay.
Similarly, law and order and crime control are now the sole preserve of the police. The district police chief is only nominally answerable to the nazim, which is a double-edged weapon. It secures the police against political interference, but also renders them less accountable to the district. When the chips are down, this could swing power balance to the province.
As for the people, the rather remote safety commissions and complaint authorities may rein in the police. But police performance will depend, ultimately, on the moral and professional calibre of the commanders. If they fail, continued repression could trigger a public backlash which, rather than being cushioned by the now deceased magistracy, may well be spearheaded by the nazims.
Thus, the new system will, ultimately, be as good or bad as its political milieu. Unfortunately, the democratic dynamics of the latter have already been subverted by external manipulation. Its systemic dynamics, which alone can guarantee a longer-term sustainability, are being distorted by military monitors peeping over the nazims' shoulders. When its own creators don't trust the new system, how can the people rely on NRB's wisdom against past experience and present apprehensions?