Reform not redraw

Federal Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s proposal for 15 additional provinces or 160 empowered district governments seems like an emerging official script that deserves constitutional scrutiny and not slogan-for-slogan rebuttal.

To be fair, this emerging script identifies a real failure. Devolution largely stopped at provincial capitals after the 18th Amendment. Provincial finance commissions became irregular or ineffective, local elections were delayed and elected councils were dissolved, redesigned or starved of functions and funds.

Pakistan cannot improve schooling, primary health, water, sanitation, land administration or urban transport through four distant secretariats. The demand for many more elected public offices and accountable government closer to citizens is sound.

The remedy, however, begins with a false constitutional choice. A province and a district are not interchangeable. A province is a constituent unit of the federation, possessing an assembly, executive authority, residual legislative competence, Senate representation and participation in the Council of Common Interests, National Economic Council and National Finance Commission.

A district government is an institution of local self-government under provincial law pursuant to Article 140A of the constitution. Pakistan needs effective government at both levels. One cannot substitute for the other.

The description of Pakistan as a two-tier system is equally incomplete. Article 140A already commands each province to establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected representatives. The Supreme Court’s 2022 local-government judgment reinforced that obligation. The constitutional defect is not the absence of a third sphere, but the repeated refusal of political executives and legislatures to make that sphere stable, adequately financed and functionally meaningful.

Precision matters when invoking the 18th Amendment. The constitutional act was abolition of the 47-entry Concurrent Legislative List. The often-cited figure of 17 refers to federal ministries or divisions administratively devolved afterwards, not constitutional subjects. The amendment redistributed legislative and executive authority within a federal compact and did not merely transfer departmental files to provincial capitals.

Creating many provinces would be far more than administrative subdivision. It would alter the territorial definition in Article 1 of the constitution, seats in the National and provincial assemblies, the composition and arithmetic of the Senate, legislative power and representation in the CCI, NEC and NFC. It would require rules for water, natural resources, assets, debt, pensions, services, police and courts. Equal Senate representation and the NFC formula make the design of provinces a question of power and solidarity, not cartography.

The constitution permits change but makes consent indispensable. An amendment affecting a province’s limits requires two-thirds support in each house of parliament and two-thirds support in the affected provincial assembly under Article 239(4). That safeguard cannot be replaced by an executive committee, an opinion poll or even a nationwide referendum.

New provinces may deepen federalism where a durable regional demand, viability and informed provincial consent converge. A centrally scripted nationwide map, imposed as an efficiency project, would instead place the 1973 compact at risk.

The same caution applies to the trichotomy of powers. Territorial reorganisation does not by itself abolish the separation among legislature, executive and judiciary. An omnibus ‘new social contract’ changing representation, executive control, fiscal relations, courts and the status of cities would, however, approach constitutional refounding. After recent alterations to judicial architecture, another hurried package should not be sold as technical adjustment.

Comparisons with India’s 28 states, Afghanistan’s 34 provinces or China’s competitive regions prove little. These systems allocate power differently. Afghanistan and China are not constitutional federations comparable to Pakistan. International evidence is more modest: decentralisation succeeds when functions, finance and accountability are aligned, responsibilities are clear, capacity exists and equalisation protects poorer regions. Counting units cannot establish causation.

Pakistan’s weak social indicators do not show that 15 more capitals will improve services. Institutions at every level suffer from discontinuity, elite capture, weak taxation, fragmented data and absent accountability. New secretariats, assemblies and judicial structures may reproduce these failures at recurring cost. Smaller size can improve access but it can also reduce fiscal capacity and economies of scale. Each function has a different appropriate geography.

Proposals reportedly under discussion to place Karachi or Gwadar under federal control or send federal money directly to local bodies, reveal the danger. Federalising cities against provincial consent would be recentralisation dressed as devolution. Discretionary transfers would weaken the NFC and invite patronage. Federal grants can be useful, but their principles should be agreed through constitutional forums and integrated with provincial finance commission awards.

Before constitutional cartography, Pakistan needs a political census. This means more than counting population. It requires a published inventory of regional consent, district-level service deficits, revenue and expenditure capacity, debt, pension and asset division, water and resource implications, minority and linguistic rights, security and ecological geography and the effects on the senate, CCI, NEC and NFC. Provincial hearings must include women, minorities, local representatives, business, labour and underserved regions. Competing maps and the option of no territorial change should receive equal fiscal and constitutional impact assessment.

The immediate reform sequence is available. Article 140A should be operationalised through protected local terms and election deadlines, defined municipal functions, regular formula-based provincial finance commission awards, meaningful own revenues, directly elected metropolitan governments, open budgets and performance audits. Provincial oversight should test legality and standards, not substitute bureaucrats for elected councils. Two uninterrupted local electoral cycles would generate evidence today’s debate lacks.

In parallel, parliament should establish an independent, multiparty reorganisation commission with equal provincial participation and expertise in constitutional law, finance, demography, municipal administration, water and security. It should issue a white paper, disclose costs, examine provincehood claims individually and publish transition plans before any amendment. South Punjab, Hazara or another claim must be judged on its own history and consent — not bundled into an arbitrary national target.

Pakistan need not choose between constitutional paralysis and constitutional adventure. The 1973 constitution was itself a social contract rebuilt after dismemberment. The 18th Amendment renewed its federal promise through broad parliamentary agreement. Reform should follow the same method: evidence, negotiation, provincial consent and a clear allocation of functions and funds.

Good governance begins not with more capitals, but with power, money and accountability reaching citizens. Pakistan should first complete its constitution before contemplating its replacement.

The writers, lawyers and authors, are adjunct faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and members of the advisory board and visiting senior fellows of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE).