The Prospects of New Local Government System. A case study of District Government Dera Ismail Khan

The shift from an existing local government system to a new one in itself is an indication of weaknesses in the replaced system. Thus, the new LGO 2001 is an effort to depart from the old platform to a new one with an assumption that the new system has such structural and functional features, which will not only wipeout the legacy problems but also add mundane values to the local government system in Pakistan. Prima facie, the intentions of new system look positive, as new structures have been introduced thereby distributing the resources and authorities down to the grass root levels with better chances of good service delivery to the general public. However, it is a pre-requisite to have a possible system best in documents; it is more important and challenging to translate the theoretical system into reality. The new system may be matchless in contents but this is not the guarantee of successful implementation. The objective of this research is to study the ground-realities of the system by gathering empirical facts and figures from real actors of the local government. The questionnaire has been applied to read the situation from all possible dimensions. To substantiate the primary data, the official record has been analyzed. The data analyses reveal several findings, which can be used as yardsticks for the prospects of new system in our country. Although, it might be taken more natural if general public is giving lower scores on the performance of new system than the councilors and government servants however, extreme attitudes are alarming. The most striking finding of the study is that there is a lack of understanding of the system itself by all the users, which is making the system-performance-evaluation more ambiguous, complicated and thus, subject to a variety of interpretations. The regression analyses expose other variables to determine the system prospects however, the dominant beta-score of ‘popular participation’ and ‘government intervention’ 9 conveys a different message. That is, efforts should be made to increase participation but more importantly a visible mechanism must be put in place to stop government intervention. It is however, worth mentioning that the public is optimistic about the new system and they are enthusiastic about its future provided, all the publicly noticed weaknesses and problems of the new system are taken up instantly and uprooted in time