By Rahat ul aain

MPA-Upgraded

Analyze the situation of governance in Pakistan from management perspective. Also suggest a

reform package to bring improvement in the present situation.

Introduction:

Governance, more appropriately responsive good governance is the first and foremost requirement of a

successful running of a state; and the concept of governance is not a simple one. It involves a number of

complex concerns and functions which can be divided into three diverse perspectives of (a) managerial

approach related to the business like handling of the public management, (b) political aspect stresses on

the publicness of public administration, and (c) legal perspectives focusing more on factors as

sovereignty, constitution and regulation of public administration in order to assure good governance in the

state. Each of these approaches to defining public administration and governance tend to stress different

values and procedural and structural arrangements for operation of public administration and each

approach view the citizen in a remarkably different way. In this paper, we are concerned solely upon the

managerial aspect of the governance of the state which is further divided into two subsets i.e. traditional

public management and a contemporary reform-oriented NPM. The managerial approach is associated

with the executive branch‟s interest in faithful execution or implementation of law and to make the public

sector more efficient and economical. (Rosenbloom & Rosenbloom, 1988)

In the present century, there is an increasing awareness of the important role government and public

administration play in facilitating economic and social change together with the growing realization of the

shortcomings of that role. The general belief holds that the far-reaching socioeconomic, political, and

technological changes currently taking place will render 21st bureaucracies obsolete. Major administrative

reform undertaking must be launched in every country, “governance” matters more and more these days.

Bidhya Bowornwathana introduced a new democratic governance paradigm that advocates a

multidimensional approach towards understanding administrative reforms based on four basic principles

stated as under:

Principle 1: a smaller government that does less that focuses more on the retrenchment of public

bureaucracies because of the view that public bureaucracies have grown too big and costly and large

portion of annual budget is used to cover salaries of the government employees, and the large size of the

public bureaucracies make them inefficient. Private sector can do better job than the state in providing

quality services or products to the public and that there should be small central government that can be

achieved through decentralization of central government to the local government units.

Principle 2: government with a global vision and flexibility which is of the view that which the increasing

globalization, government should have more global vision in order to function properly. Officials are

required to be open minded and global thinkers to find creative solutions to the problems and search

alternatives of organizational designs. Moreover the officials need to understand the significance of the

technological revolution and must be flexible enough to adopt it.

Principle 3: accountable government i.e. the government should be highly accountable to the citizens and

elected politicians. More educated people have less tolerance for unethical conduct of public officials and

that the mass media freedom in the present century has increased the demand for accountable

government, thus challenging the monopoly of the government.

Principle 4: A government that is fair that centers on the belief that we should pay attention to who

benefits from government reform. Administrative reform programs and policies may have positive and

negative consequences for a particular group of people.

(Bowornwathana, 2006)

1. Define the problem

“People now place their hopes in God, since the government is no longer involved in such matters.”

(Narayan, 100)

2. What are the issues? Analyze them

Pakistan‟s bureaucracy‟s major failure is in its inability to promote welfare, development, equity and

provision of justice to the citizens. Elitism and continuity are the hallmarks of Pakistani bureaucracy

in addition to cohesion, staying power, organizational capacity to sustain continuity of policies,

preserve the status quo and maintain a semblance of stability. In the eyes of the critics, the structure

of civil services remains „colonial‟ and „transformation‟ has been cosmetic. In their perception civil

servants remain arrogant, corrupt, over-bearing, inefficient and self-perpetuating. So the civil services

are ill equipped to govern or serve the people and meet the challenges that confront the country. Civil

services of Pakistan has gone through a bundle of reforms and is still in a need to be reformed with

the changing situations in order to effectively manage the personnel hired for administrative

machinery of the country.

Telling Pakistan‟s story is not that simple and easy as you cannot tell a bad story well. You cannot

make numbers that don‟t add up seem right with a supercomputer. You cannot make someone who

isn‟t very smart, sound smart just because he‟s using a smart phone! As Pakistan gets tattered for

being a poorly governed nation with little proactive demonstration by either government or civil

society that reflects any kind of understanding of how urgently reforms are required, the problem of

confusing instruments as alternatives to substance is once again rearing its ugly head. In 2000,

Pakistan prepared its first National IT Policy and Action Plan. Pakistan is a great example of highly

successful technology adoption. Pakistan is also simultaneously, a great example of highly

unsuccessful application and content generation. This is because in Pakistan, public policy is often

run by engineers and other linearly programmed professionals, as most of pre-2002 Musharraf

government was.

Moreover, the concept of information technology became so overwhelmingly part of national

consciousness that people forgot that IT was an instrument, or a means. It was never the end itself. In

Pakistan, IT has been taken up as an end result rather than a means or an instrument to attain the end

or a goal. It has rarely been taken up as an instrument or a tool to do things that were already being

done, in a manner faster, cheaper and more efficient. It is true that Pakistan state structures do not

have access to or expertise in, technology.

The next problem is the regarding human resource management of public sector and management of

the human capital available in the country. Pakistan‟s biggest asset is its human capital, which if

ignored, is also its greatest threat and may cause it to implode. But we don‟t see any reflection of this

immense potential and threat in our national policy making. None of the federal or provincial budgets

carry any innovative measures aimed at creating a motivating environment of opportunity and

responsibility for the youth. About 72.9 million of our country‟s population struggles merely to

survive under the poverty line; among them 60 percent are young men and women with endless

energy but limited patience.

The information, on the basis of which international agencies make reform policies for us, is not

sufficient and there are gaps and missings in what they know about our country and what actually

exists here, thus creating a mess by the formulation and implementation of inappropriate policies that

does not fit to the needs of the local people. We blindly follow the path of developed countries and

the way supranational agencies guides us to. They make reform policies and implement it here by

hook or by crook. That creates resistance among the public. E.g. access to justice reform (AJR) was

introduced to improve the quality of justice in long term and the program loan was provided by Asian

Development Bank. High salaries of a large no. of judges were allotted but all in vain, there was no

outcome and this proved to be an inefficient reform. So before the formulation of any reform policy,

they must consult the civil servants who could show them the real picture of what is going on in the

country and what type of policies are needed. There should be some balance between what they want

and what we need. Otherwise there will be a great resistance among the general public resulting in a

total mess and that‟s what‟s happening in our country now-a-days.

There is no home grown policy that‟s purely indigenous. Only small level reforms initiatives of

provincial or local level are purely indigenous such as budgetary reforms at provincial levels as well

as master plans for provinces policies about fine, levies, fees, such policies are purely home grown

whereas the major reform policies are mostly outsourced from outside.

Keeping in view the present situation of Pakistan, the intelligence agencies presently working in the

country i.e. IB (Intelligence Bureau), ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), and MI (Military Intelligence

Agency) must be reformed in order to fight the fatal problems of militancy and terrorism which must

be kicked out of the country as soon as possible.

Despite of having natural resources and a great deal of other resources, Pakistan‟s economy is on the

declining edge as the country is being exploited by the terms and conditions of the international

agencies giving loan and foreign aid to Pakistan, and exploiting Pakistani resources at a minimum

rate. There must be reform policies for the access of resource to the local population of the country.

Furthermore, Pakistan has been a heaven for those engaged in smuggling, under-invoicing, evasion of

taxes in the name of free economy. According to recent FBR report, 57% of Pakistan‟s economy is

untaxed making the country‟s total revenue about Rs.1.5trillion, and if this 57% untaxed economy is

taxed the total revenues will be about Rs.2.5trillion. In fact donor countries have started saying that

aid recipients like Pakistan must rely on their own resources first.

Another major problem is that our education system does not come close to the requirements of the

development of human capital leaving the children and young people to be a part of wasted human

capital in the form of suicide bombers, being victims of child abuse, paving way for juvenile

delinquency and cheap child labor.

3. What has been done so far?

Each reform effort in civil services of Pakistan was preceded by a purge. President Ayub‟s purge was

followed by Cornellius Pay Services and Reform Commission of 1962. General Yahya‟s purge of 303

was followed by Bhutto‟s 1973 Administrative Reforms which were then preceded by massive purge

of 1300 civil servants. During bhutto‟s period, CSP was abolished and was transformed into DMG

(District Management Group) and TAG (Tribal Administration Group) which were later combined

into one group called DMG. Moreover, an all Pakistan unified grade system was introduced and

distinction between CSP, PSP and others came to an end. Furthermore, Bhutto opened DMG,

Customs and Foreign services cadres to women which were previously specified for males only.

Then, general Zia-ul-Haq‟s govt did not pursue any systematic purge but constituted Anwar-ul-Haq

commission to rehabilitate and promote some level of confidence among the civil servants. His govt

expanded and institutionalized induction of armed forces personnel into civil services.

Previously magisterial powers system was introduced in 1996 in which most of the power was vested

with the magistrates. This system was then considered to be obsolete as there were some

shortcomings of this system including the fact that there was a high level of centralization of power

with the magistrates. There was a dire need for reforms to bring about decentralization of power and

efficiency in the public sector. A no. of reforms were taken that proved to be ineffective later on and

were discontinued then. Among those, devolution plan introduced by Pervaiz Musharraf was a major

step taken towards bringing about decentralization. Some other reform initiatives taken in this area

were introducing multifarious ministries system in which government institutions were divided into

several ministries with one or more divisions (departments at provincial level).

Recently public private partnership (PPP) concept is being focused at that curtails government service

or private venture which is funded and operated through a partnership in such a way the government

funds the project and make policies in collaboration with the private partner and the private sector

runs the project using business techniques. This concept is based on using corporate model and its

techniques in the public sector to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the government projects.

After the eighteenth amendment in the constitution, the excessive ministries are being dissolved and

being merged into few working ministries that are necessary for the proper functioning of the state.

This is because multifarious ministries system was being used with the vested interests of the

politicians and bureaucrats as more and more ministries were developed just to accommodate people

as ministers which were of no use in actual. System of small sized single purpose ministry system

lead to corruption instead of efficiency.

In addition to the administrative reforms by the federal government in the area of organizational

structure, human resource management reforms initiatives were also taken. Some of these are;

establishment of a separate division known as FPSC (Federal Public Service Commission) that has

been provided autonomy i.e. administrative as well as financial autonomy and is presently functioning

independently.

Examination system and recruitment for civil service employees had been reformed in an efficient

manner. The recruitment involves written exam, interview, psychological assessment etc i.e. a

rigorous system of recruitment had been developed and a merit based selection is done to make sure

the selection of only able and deserving people as the public administrators and civil servants.

Training process was also reformed as an elaborative training structure was introduced that involved

regular training regime (i.e. for grade 17-18, 18-19, 19-20 and so on) instead of training provided

only to the senior grade officers.

Moreover, on the job training and all the other training forms being carried on in the private sector

were also introduced into the system but very less efforts were being done to make those trainings as

workable and efficient as they were in the private sector.

Financial management reform initiatives were also taken in order to make this system as efficient as

possible. Presently, the traditional method of record keeping, compiling accounts and audits has

become obsolete. PIFRA(Project to Improve Financial Reporting and Audit) and PPRA(public

Procurement Regulatory Authority) were some of major reform initiatives taken in the financial

management to improve its working making use of computerized system and more modern

technology to make the financial management more efficient and effective.

Business-based practices are mostly being adopted in the financial management of public sector in

income tax and customs. Moreover computerized system has been introduced for the land recording

system and registration, one window operation has been introduced in LDA; and self assessment

techniques have been practiced in income tax. But even after the implication of business practices, a

marked improvement has been seen but these practices have played a part in the improvement of

these departments.

Not a single large reform has been taken as such in the area of performance evaluation, that is worth

mentioning, old traditional ways are being used to evaluate performance. Only small sized reform

initiatives have been taken such as ACR (Annual Confidential Report) has presently been given the

name of PER (Performance Evaluation Report), but that is same as ACR and the change is only in its

name not in its working.

Mostly the larger and important reform initiatives are funded by supranational agencies i.e. world

bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank, OEDC, UN etc and they have some vested interest in these

reforms. Our reform policies are mostly dependent upon international agencies, rather it would be

more appropriate to say that the major reform policies are being formulated by these agencies and

there is always a vested interest in these policies. They overpower our indigenous reform

commission; they make the reform policies, fund those policies and take advantage out of it.

Even if any policy given by international agencies that does not harms anyone and is just a regulatory

policy is resisted by the public as the public has learned to resist against any policy that is given by

these agencies. Such as world bank wants to introduce VAT (value Added Tax) that is very similar to

GST (Generalized Sales Tax) because there is a general view that this policy will be implemented by

the international agencies against the will of the people. As a result, if VAT is implemented, it will

just be a makeshift cosmetic change that will not be owned by the people of the country.

4. Suggest a reform package to improve the situation

We need to engage our youth by refocusing it, giving it a sense of responsibility, and allowing it a

meaningful role in participatory democracy. Micro-finance for youth is needed on a war footing

because we are in the midst of a social war with an overwhelmingly young and alarmingly

disempowered youth. The mantra of finance minister needs to be micro-finance for the youth.

Lowering the voting age to 18 years is meaningless until the role of the young is meaningfully

enhanced.

A national scheme of youth loans must be launched to provide small loans to holders of masters‟

degrees and graduates of recognized vocational diploma schools. Loans must be offered at a

negligible low mark up and the collateral must be the project itself and the personal bond of initiator.

The youth should be asked to present innovative and less capital-intensive ideas and reasonable

business plans based on existing needs or niche market. For sure many will fail but those who do

make it will give our country a massive new business class, because the priority must be to teach how

to catch a fish rather than handing out proverbial fish to the hungry.

Pakistan is still being run on the max Weber‟s typical concept of bureaucracy. But to some extent

market based practices have been introduced in the public sector. Presently, the structure of

government organizations of Pakistan is based on the typical bureaucratic model introduced by Max

Weber, that is accompanied by many flaws in this that inhibit the progress and development of the

country. Business model must also be brought in addition to it (that‟s being brought by some

departments by using business based practices) i.e. NPM (New Public Management) model must be

introduced but only to a limited extent in order to bring decentralization and efficiency to make the

country run at par with the globalized world. There should not be an extreme of either of these two.

But bringing about decentralization will be a drastic change that may lead to total mess and disorder

in the state, so this change must be made strategically and gradually in order to avoid any chaos.

While bringing intelligence reforms, we need to build up the IB and to bring it at par with ISI. For it

to be effective, there is a need for development of a vertical link between the IB, the special branch

and the police in all provinces. Moreover, ISI‟s mission and mandate must be reviewed. The

coordinating office for all the intelligence agencies must report directly to the prime minister and his

cabinet; and should not be placed under one ministry. The coordinator should have a status of a

federal minister in order to play an effective role. An Act of Parliament must be passed forbidding the

present and future governments to use intelligence and law enforcement agencies for political

advantage.

Pakistan must rethink her strategy from foreign policy to economic and social strategy. If all the

resources of the country are put together and sensibly employed, Pakistan will be free from reliance

on the donor countries and earn socio-politico-economic freedom. Local access to the local economy

is the solution for Pakistan to make its economy better rather than globalization. This strategy will

encourage investment, production, and export, creating employment for masses and to make them self

reliant. Moreover it will increase competitiveness and access to the world market on its own merit.

Keeping in view the present situation of Pakistan and the vulnerability of the children and young

people to being exploited by the ruthless society, our policy makers should chart out areas of

vulnerabilities of this age group and come up with comprehensive and truly effective policy for them

that encompass both education and training in various trades. Moreover, special attention should be

given on the issues such as media to avoid negative portrayal of this age group, efforts to educate

adults to encourage young people rather than emphasizing their faults, teachers‟ training including

inculcation of values of humanity and respect for cultural and other differences in their studies.

Furthermore, parents should be encouraged to communicate more effectively with their children and

to make parents aware of the need of non-judgmental listening to their children, and to build a

relationship of trust among them. The government has the responsibility to draft and put into action

an all-inclusive policy towards children and young people, as this is the time for us to consider for

psychological counseling for troubled youth and to prevent them from being a part of squandered

human capital.