Reforming the civil services
By Sultan Ahmed
BUREAUCRACY in Pakistan is in the melting pot. It is assailed from many sides. The political leaders are very dissatisfied with it. The military commanders do not approve of its performance. It is being deprived of its most lucrative territory within the government through rapid privatisation of large public sector units where they got much higher emoluments than what they get in the government proper.
On the other hand, private sector managers are taking over their jobs, the examples being that of Abdullah Yusuf, chairman of the Central Board of Revenue and Tariq Hamid, Chairman of Wapda. The World Bank and other aid agencies have voiced their dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy and want total reform in it before large-scale new aid could be given to Pakistan in several sectors.
Armed forces personnel have taken over a thousand civilian posts in the government. And the Federal Public service commission is headed by a general and more and more top civilian posts are going that way. And now there is a move for scrapping the ten per cent merit quota in the federal government services following raising of Balochistan`s quota to 6 per cent. The last meeting of the federal cabinet could not take a decision in this regard as there was strong opposition to that within it.
There has been demand for a higher quota to the rural areas of Sindh in the federal services on the basis of their backwardness, but that was opposed in the cabinet by some ministers who argued that some parts of Punjab were equally backward as is rural Sindh. These are highly sensitive issues on which decisions have to be taken with a great deal of care to avoid needless recriminations. A similar demand is being raised for promotion to top positions in the government on the basis of quota system for jobs. It was voiced at a tumultuous meeting of a special committee of the Senate where it was pointed out that Balochistan officers seldom reach the top. It was said that out of 52 secretaries in the federal setup only one was a grade 21 officer from Balochistan and he too was an acting secretary for parliamentary affairs.
It was said that out of 210 officers promoted from grade 19 to 20 during the last five years only 14 belonged to Balochistan. And Dr. Abdul Malik criticised the promotion of 10 army majors to secretary-level officers who have reportedly not cleared the Federal Public Service Commission examination. There was severe criticism in the committee on promotion or debarring of officers on the basis of secret reports of intelligence agencies which have acquired a big say in the affair. And often these reports are found utterly wrong.
There were also protests against growing examples of holders of master’s degree serving under matriculate officers. There was a report that 171 gazetted officers in the federal bureaucracy are just matriculates against 170 master’s degree holders serving in the lowest tiers of grade 1 and 2. It was said that 70 per cent of the bureaucracy consisted of undergraduates.
In such a situation, the World Bank has offered to provide funds for organisational and institutional capacity building in the public sector if the government would first reform the civil services. It asserts that the performance of the public sector cannot be improved without reforming the civil services. The bank has been reiterating this for a long time now. When the government needs large funds, particularly for the five large dams, an efficient and effective civil service is essential and it has asked the government to formulate a new strategy for good governance by June this year after a countrywide assessment of the prevailing ills and the available human resource potential.
The government has appointed a high-powered commission under Dr. Ishrat Hussain, a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan to suggest comprehensive reforms after examining every aspect of the administration and the problem it faces. Dr. Ishrat has been at work for a long time now and what kind of recommendations he makes will be of keen interest to many.
And now a new controversy has arisen regarding the integrity or reliability of the statistics provided by the government. Doubts about the veracity of the facts and figures provided by the Central Statistical Organisation have been raised by non-officials earlier but now the officials too have joined the ranks of the doubters.
The World Bank has expressed its doubts regarding the reliability of the poverty reduction figures provided by the government. For the years 2001-05 the World Bank estimate for the reduction in poverty is half of the official claim and the World Bank continues to repeat that. The State Bank has now voiced its doubt about the authenticity of the official statistics and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been calling for credible and reliable statistics. There is certainly need for real improvement in this area so that the figures are beyond doubt and above question. Distinct improvement is essential in the areas of inflation, money supply and income distribution.
The quality of the officials depends largely on the quality of education they receive, and that has been poor, and on what they are paid for their services. And now the ministry of education has prepared a paper for imparting education up to matric level to all children. The scheme if fully implemented will cost six per cent of the GDP and the government has to strain a great deal to find the necessary resources.
Such an objective has been claimed from time to time by successive governments without really meaning to achieve that in view of the forbidding costs. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government was the first one to announce such a policy in 1972 and schools and colleges were nationalised and that free education was to be imparted up to the matric level. But the educational facilities available were less than adequate. So, the quality of education degenerated and the education system did not expand to meet the nationwide demand.
Then came private schools in large numbers to meet the demand for quality education, but most people could not afford their high fees. Since then, the imparting of free education up to the matric level has been the ideal of almost every government but they could not find the financial resources in spite of the rising aid for the social sector. This government too wants to make a move in that direction and has come up with a policy paper at a time when the actual outlay on education is 2.7 per cent of the GDP.
Minister for Education Javed Ashraf Qazi says the government is now determined to allocate four per cent of the GDP for education sector which is the prescribed Unesco target. There could be some adjustment here and there he says but the president and the prime minister had approved the target. According to the Unesco, Pakistan is second to Nigeria in the number of out-of-school children who total 6.5 million and 80 per cent of them had never been enrolled in a school, ten per cent were dropouts, while the remaining could go to school at a later stage.
Spending six per cent of the GDP instead of 2.7 per cent, last year’s figure, is way off now. But spending four per cent is feasible with some real commitment. But what matters is not only how much is spent but how fruitfully and purposefully it is spent and an adequate number of qualified and dedicated teachers have to be recruited and enough number of text books provided. We should not have a repeat of Sap-1 and Sap-2 with their vast waste. And there should be no ghost schools and ghost teachers galore as we had in the past.
How the government and the educational authorities are able to overcome the resistance in society to girls going to schools remain to be seen. Quality education can pave the way for a quality civil service although there can be many hindrances to that in a starkly feudal system. But if rapid economic progress and sustained high rate of growth are the objectives, then quality education is absolutely necessary. Only truly educated people can stand up for their rights and strive for democratic norms.
In such an environment we cannot dispense with merit while recruiting the officials, which at 10 per cent of the overall services is a small figure. It may result in candidates of the majority province getting in through the merit quota as well as through domicile that those from other provinces. But the federal setup has to pay its price.
In this age of technology with intense competition in the area of trade and culture merit cannot be sacrificed. If a compromise has to be reached it has to be a moderate one.
While there is a scramble for government jobs and quota system is the means to protect the interests of the provinces, the private sector, particularly the multinational companies, are paying higher salaries up to two million rupees a month.
So the government jobs are losing the attraction for those who are more enterprising and talented. Even the foreign service has lost its appeal. The success of Shaukat Aziz as an international banker shows where the private sector service can lead to. Ultimately what matters is what comes out of the report of Dr. Ishrat Hussain’s commission and how much it shows the way to good governance and reform of the system. The report should be ready early and be given effect without heedless delay.
Reference:
http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/01/ed.htm#4