Pakistan Wants Professional Bureaucracy
Shaukat Masood Zafar
The main function of bureaucracy in any part of the world is to implement the policies of the sitting government with full commitment and devotion. The basic idea behind the formation of bureaucratic structures was to provide ‘permanent’ government in the sense that the bureaucrats kept running the system of the government for the larger benefit of people as they were and are civil servants. Political executive in the form of politicians could come and go but the bureaucrats stay on to look after the working of the governments.
So their job has never been formulation of policy. They do help political leadership in policy making but never make policies themselves. It is within the sole domain of the politicians to formulate policies as their mandate stems from their being elected representative of people. It is a pity that the political class has abandoned its role of policy formulation and bureaucrats have taken over this role by filling in the vacuum.
Unfortunately our bureaucracy was and is involved in corruption rather it has become the strongest Mafia of the country. Bureaucracy in Pakistan has always been in the background of every coming and going government and in fact it is an impediment to an efficient and effective government. The highly trained bureaucratic expertise and experience always prevail and dominate against the less expert ministers who ostensibly run the administrative units. It is this group of bureaucracy who has been along with the military generals formulating the policies and political as well as ideological framework of Pakistan and being permanently in office, unlike the politicians, it is they who have the power to actually govern the state as an administrative group. Rather the stark reality is that most regimes in Pakistan including martial law Governments have played into the hands of bureaucracy.
In fact the so called administrative reforms of 1973 were a major setback to the well-entrenched Civil Service of Pakistan, as the CSP was made the prime target of these changes by the Z.A.Bhutto regime. A large number of CSPs were sacked, constitutional guarantees of civil servants were withdrawn, and a system of lateral entry was introduced. In the new dispensation of PPP it was not merit, hard work or efficiency, but loyalty to the master which was the basis for all recruitment, promotions and postings. Z.A.Bhutto inducted 514 lateral recruits into the bureaucracy and diluted the authority of the Federal Public Service Commission. The immediate impact of the implementation of the administrative reforms drastically changed cadre of Civil Services of Pakistan. The CSP was abolished; the reservation of posts for CSPs and other elite services was discontinued, the CSP Academy was abolished and a joint training system was introduced, the domain of the All-Pakistan Services newly-constituted as the All-Pakistan Unified Grade was expanded to include a majority of non-CSP and non-PSP officers, and finally it also adopted of a uniform scales of pay which eliminated the financial advantage of the CSP in salary structure and introduced a system of lateral recruitment. This model of patronage, which dispensed with professionalism and performance and promoted loyalty to rulers, has been religiously followed by all subsequent political governments.
The governments of Benazir and Nawaz Sharif — to retain their grip on the polity they also required a weak and subservient civil service rather than a strong and independent one, and so backed off. Due to continuous political interference and weak decision making power of our politicians, the bureaucracy has grown up, with the needs of time, in a highly developed “power complex”. Weak and corrupt politicians played a decisive role in making the politicians weaker and weaker pushing up the bureaucrats to higher position of not only executive control but also policy making. Constant political interference by the politicians just to cover their corruption and corrupt practice is in fact negation to evolve strong, stable and genuine institutions in Pakistan.
Result is that, of the many challenges, pervasive corruption, bad governance, deteriorating rule of law and weak state institutions are now impediments to Pakistan’s successful transition to a real federal republic. A series of failures, deteriorating rule of law, fragile security, two-digit inflation, slumped economy, growing unemployment, rampant corruption, widening poverty, moribund development, rising trade deficit, unregulated market, politicized bureaucracy, poor service delivery, increasing debts, derelict public institutions and fractious politics are now characteristics of Pakistan’s democratization process. Democracy has not been able to deliver development and good governance as expected. Pakistan is facing a Herculean challenge to promote good governance and control corruption to restore decreasing people’s trust in democratic system because of our bigoted political parties.
Standards and quality of life being enjoyed by the majority of our bureaucrats today leave no room for doubt that it has become an extremely lucrative and comfortable business to be a bureaucrat. The glamorous lifestyles reserved for the bureaucracy in Pakistan is with very few parallels in the contemporary world. Personal interests of the ruling elite and bureaucratic class are the main hurdles in real development of the country.
Weak state capacity hinders development and good governance, which is a pre-requisite to institutionalization of the democratic system. Therefore, the focus of political leadership in Pakistan should be to create political stability and good governance for at least a decade to come to materialize the long-sought economic transformation. Political parties in Pakistan see democracy just as a ‘legitimate recourse’ to grab power. This narrow interpretation of democracy not only distort the true meaning of democracy but also alienate the general populace who has become disgusted with these so-called democrats who seem no more interested to the common cause for good governance, institution building, security, development, effective services and strong rule of law.
In two decades of fragile democracy in Pakistan, many institutions have been destroyed. We have destabilized social harmony, ruined bureaucracy, police, judiciary, local bodies and many other key institutions. The civil servants have lost their worth, value and vigor. The performance and merit has become irrelevant for posting, promotions and patronage now and civil servants are transferred, sidelined or suspended with the stroke of a pen, just like ordinary peon. A consistent bureaucracy is a requirement for continuity of a national policy-bureaucracy implying firstly the secretaries and those working under them to serve the minister in charge of a subject; such staff must not change with the change of a minister and such secretaries must be appointed for a permanent term by an independent body and not the minister; hence is the term permanent secretary in the days before the bureaucracy was politicized after “restoration of democracy” in 1988. It is time to reinvent the bureaucracy’s role. It would take decades, if not years, for a committed leadership to rebuild these institutions. We have to bring back the era in which the civil servants enjoyed immense power, perks and privileges side by side enormous responsibilities and tight accountability, and give them back constitutional guarantees of their service.
Source:
http://www.pakspectator.com/pakistan...l-bureaucracy/