Civil Service in the news
 

[I]This is an exclusive thread for any news items that relate to our beloved country's civil services. [/I]

[B]DMG – Monolith Empire or Unsung Heroes? [/B]by Qudrat Ullah

Recently concluded shendful campaigning of Punjab chapter of PCS Officers against their more privileged counterpart- the District Management Group or more commonly called the DMG, has opened a new debate in the press about the extraordinary role played by the Civil Service of Pakistan in the national development and political affairs. Different opinions have already been expressed by media-men and the Columnists about the issue. One veteran Urdu columnist even went on to blame the DMG for all ills, especially the political frustration of Bengalis, consequently resulting in the ignominious surrender of Pakistani armed forces before Indian in 1971. However, what he did not know or fail to mention is that the DMG was officially created after the promulgation of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan by late ZA Bhutto in 1973 and therefore, it cannot be blamed for anything happening much before its making. Civil Service, in some way, is a victim of circumstances; it often has to work in odd or miserable circumstances as politicians have, time and again, proved their ineptness in judicious administration and therefore, Civil Servants are the only available option available to the people. In fact, Pakistani politicians’ approach towards governance is limited to pleasing their voters and rules are often violated to gain some political mileage. Lack of any parliamentary institution to train the politicians further aggravates the situation.

It is, therefore, important to objectively study the historical role played by the elite Civil Service of Pakistan in the debacle of 1971 and afterwards because they are the inalienable organ of the State.

Historically speaking, Eastern and Western wings of newly created State of Pakistan in 1947 were geographically separated by 1100 miles and a hegemonic enemy the size and might of India was in between them. Both wings were unlike in many ways; population and resources were totally imbalanced, and Eastern Pakistani elite felt culturally threatened when the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah announced that Urdu would be the sole national language. The mainly urban unrest over the issue of Bengali language set the future course of uneasy bilateral relations between the two antagonist wings till 1971, when violent disturbances gave India ‘the chance of the century’ to benefit upon. Bureaucracy in then East Pakistan cannot be solely blamed as decade-long Ayubian dictatorship realized to the majority Bengalis that West Pakistanis will never accept their legitimate demands. It may be added here that after the dismemberment of united Pakistan, 89 Bengali CSPs opted for the newly created state of Bangladesh in 1972, and 28 of them were senior Officers working in the federal Secretariat in Islamabad. The much debated Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission Report also flings ample light on the causes of separation of Eastern wing. It has never accused Civil Servants for East Pakistan tragedy.

It is particular to realize that Civil Servants, everywhere in the world, are taught to strictly follow the rules and policy instructions of the party in power. They gain their strength from the rule of law and popular public support. The British Raj gave them this necessary strength by strictly adhering to rules and regulations. The British successfully ruled India with no more than 1500 ICS when infrastructure was very inadequate and modest.

While, in the case of Pakistan, democracy remained mostly hostage to military interventions and lack of allegiance to rule of law added to the deteriorating of situation. In this tangible situation, civil Servants, alone, cannot be blamed for our national ills. The whole nation is also accountable for any breach of law as it has adopted an attitude of an impassive bystander; recent Sialkot lynching incident is but a valid proof of it. We should learn to struggle for the rule of law and give support to the competent and honest Officers so that mantra of good governance could be materialized.

Over the period of time after the turbulent 1971, DMG has emerged as the most powerful and prestigious service-cadre, being responsible for district administration because of their competence and professionalism. What they needed is political and public support for reforms. The 2001 Local Governance Ordinance, however, has dealt a severe blow to the power and prestige of the DMG by replacing the position of Deputy Commissioner with District Coordination Officer and transferring many of the powers of DC to Nazim. But the new system has also failed to deliver and died too early.

The Civil Servants are crème de la crème of the society who are chosen through a tough competitive examination. Their potentials are further polished, through trainings, to emerge as best leaders, team players and role models who could serve the people with dedication and competence. However, their function is limited within prescribed rules and regulations. Their life is not a bed of roses. Civil Servants often have to perform their duties in the worst situations like that of 1971 and now of Balochistan and restive parts of Swat and FATA.

The role of well trained, efficient and dedicated Civil Service for the well being of the people is self-evident. No good governance agenda could be achieved without an efficient Civil Service. This is what the British learnt in Sub-Continent, who effectively administered the vast continent with a small yet well-trained and professional Indian Civil Service. If we also want to make Pakistan a developed and prosperous State, then Civil Service should be allowed to work independently and according to rules and regulations.

This is what the media should project, instead.

[URL="http://criticalppp.com/archives/25020"]Source[/URL]

PCS, DMG Issue
 

[B]PCS, DMG Issue

Friday, September 24, 2010

By Babar Dogar
[/B]

It seems the negotiations between the PCS officers association and the committee - constituted by Punjab chief minister to resolve the issues of 1200 PCS, PSS and PMS officers of the province - have reached a deadlock.

The inconclusive meeting held after inordinate delay has dismayed majority of the provincial officers.

Refusal of the committee to address the core issues of the provincial services has strengthened the perception among the provincial officers that the committee is more responsive to the vested interests of the District Management Group than the genuine rights of the provincial officers.

The committee is reportedly ready only to give peripheral concessions to the provincial officers, toeing the DMG line.

The meeting of the committee was held on Wednesday, with Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa,Advisor to the CM, in the chair. Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Senator Parvez Rashid, Mian Ata Maneka and Shaikh Alauddin also attended the meeting.

It was one of the numerous meetings held by the committee during the last many months and remained inconclusive, as usual.

The meeting discussed issues regarding DMG officers occupying GOR-I, restrained entry of the provincial officers in the Civil Officers Mess, erratic postings, taking up power-sharing formula of the provincial and the federal services with the federal government, but failed to remove any bottleneck.

It is learnt that controversy has developed over recording of minutes of previous meeting of the Committee which decided various issues. Most of the contentious issues were decided in the meeting of the committee held immediately after province-wide assemblage of provincial officers.

The PCS officers allege that the minutes were differently recorded by S&GAD and later got approved from the chief minister.

The minutes were not even shared with the PCS officers association. According to PCS officers, it was decided in the meeting that DMG officers who had been transferred out of the province would retain the official accommodation in Lahore only for one year. However, the minutes got approved from the CM had stipulate that they could retain house for two years.

The stance of the PCS officers is that such a concession should be given to the DMG officers only in the federal capital where they belong to, not in the provinces.

The previous decision regarding the revision of controversial seat-sharing formula between the provinces and the federation has also been omitted from the minutes.

It was decided by the committee that the federal government would be requested to revise the formula.

PCS officers allege that the formula has no legal basis as it is neither part of any law nor is notified. No PCS officer was ever consulted while determining the formula and DMG officers and their cohorts acted as judge, jury and the executioner. They allege that DMG got allocated for themselves seats double than their sanctioned cadre strength which is unparalleled in the entire world. The other point on which DMG is not conceding even an inch and on which they have got the support of the political leadership, is the issue of erratic postings. It has been long-standing demand of the PCS officers that erratic postings should be ended and officers given posts according to their grades. However, almost all the DMG officers in grade 17 and 18 are working on one-step higher posts.

In many districts, grade-18 DMG officers have been posted as DCOs and their senior PCS officers in grade-19 are working under them as EDOs. The Higher Education, they claim, would have been posted as a section officer had he been at the Federal Secretariat as he was in grade-18 when posted as the secretary. Almost all the additional secretaries belonging to DMG are in grade-18.

Another long-standing complaint of the PCS officers that they are being relegated to unimportant posts has also not been addressed. There is not even a single PCS Commissioner in the entire province; not a single PCS secretary amongst 43 administrative secretaries. Majority of the DCOs are also from DMG.

The PCS officers who have made it to the higher grades of 19 and 20 are posted on unimportant posts. The PCS officers are not ready to buy the rhetoric that there are not suitable officers for posting on such posts. They say that the DMG officers surrounding the CM have poisoned his ears against the PCS. The apartheid-like treatment of shutting the door of the Punjab Civil Officers Mess on the provincial officers still continues.

The PCS officers association has already brought all the provincial associations, including PMA, Professors and Lecturers Association, Secretariat Associations and scores of other associations, under one umbrella.

It has been reliably learnt that, after cobbling similar coalitions in other provinces, the provincial services are planning to stage sit-in in front of the Parliament building and protest against what they claim is illegal and unconstitutional seat-sharing formula of 1993.

Talking to this scribe, PCS officers association president Rai Manzoor Nasir said that the provincial services had been driven against wall through relentless exploitation during the last 63 years. Now, the provincial officers would not sit still until they eliminated the gross injustice and exploitation. He strongly protested against DMG officers for changing previous meeting minutes in which leverage was given to the DMG officers.

Source:
[url]http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=6348&Cat=5[/url]

Civil Services Is No Longer An Alluring Career for Pakistanis
 

[B]June 29, 2008

Civil Services Is No Longer An Alluring Career for Pakistanis

Raza Rumi
[/B]
A little news item that appeared a few weeks ago was ignored by our all-knowing analysts and TV channels. Reportedly, the Federal Public Service Commission failed to recruit all the vacancies that were advertised for the CSS competitive examination held in 2007. Out of 290 available posts, the number of successful candidates in the 2007 CSS competition was merely 190, leaving almost 100 vacancies unoccupied.

[CENTER][IMG]http://pakistaniat.com/images/css_pak.jpg[/IMG]

In the photo above Founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah is seen talking to Pakistani Civil Servants (circa 1947)[/CENTER]

Last year, too, the government could not get enough number of successful CSS candidates to fill in the available posts and 47 vacancies could not be filled. Such instances have occurred before but given the state of unemployment this is, to put it mildly, shocking.

The truth of the matter is that entering the civil service is no longer an alluring career option for the talented young men and women of this country. Perhaps, the greatest damage to the attractiveness of the civil service came in the wake of the devolution plan that rendered the most coveted service group — District Management Group – unpalatable. Within days, the district administrators had no prescribed career-paths and that they had to be subservient to small time political cronies of the central political elites.

But this would be too simplistic an explanation. The last decade has also witnessed Pakistan’s fitful integration into the global economy resulting in expansion of private sector opportunities with higher salaries. The remuneration of a new entrant into the civil service is three times less than what a telecom company would pay to its junior employee. With money as a new god in the age of globalisation, choosing a dysfunctional civil service would make little sense.

The almost sinister destruction of the DMG and the centuries old office of the district magistrate or its historical predecessor, the mansabdar, was ahistorical and reflected the petty tensions within the Executive where the rival services viewed the DMG as an unfairly privileged elite service. The martial mind viewed the DMG as an alternative power centre that needed to be neutralised for effective capture of civilian institutions.

Today all the major civil service training academies are headed by former army men; and most poignantly the civil service reform unit in Islamabad is headed by a general as well.

It is ironical that opportunities for rent seeking have multiplied under the newly devolved structures. The District Coordination Officer, the new avatar for the erstwhile Deputy Commissioner, and his staff have a wider menu of commissions and kickbacks along with the political honchos, thereby defying the faint possibility of electoral accountability. The testimony of this comes from none else than former Chief Minister Punjab. It is therefore not the lack of ‘extra’ income that has made DMG unattractive. It is the loss of the unique service culture where the DC and his team functioned as relatively neutral state agents, mediated between the citizens and the state; and could potentially resist political influence.

From the citizens’ perspective, two immediate after-shocks haunted the local governance patterns. First, the reconfiguring of the ‘system’ led to an unbridled and unchecked police force interacting directly with citizens with remote, little supervision. Second, the absolute collapse of local citizen interest regulation, which evolved over 150 years of governing experience. There are two to three hundred local and special laws, ranging from price control to natural resource management (water, irrigation and land) and from public health (adulteration, hygiene etc.) to environmental protection (forest, wildlife, pollution etc.). This is not to say that prior to 1999 the police was supervised effectively by the district magistrate or local regulation was optimal or efficient. In fact, decades of politicisation of civil service had resulted in ugly distortions of the so-called ‘system.’

If the old system was not delivering or a colonial relic there were other ways to handle it than to throw out the sick baby with the bath water and usher in multiple patronage seekers and distributors. After all, civilian administrations in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and in many other countries continue with local adaptation and contextualisation. Why could we not learn from our much-feared neighbour especially the way its organic growth of local institutions blends grassroots democracy with a Raj administrative steel-frame?

Whilst these systemic tremors were felt by the citizens in whose name a reform was imposed from the top, the provinces felt completely bypassed thus reincarnating the old demons of troubled federalism. Services such as health, education were meant to improve. Whilst the budgetary allocations went up, the results were nowhere to be seen as the provincial secretariats appropriated more powers and local rent-seeking replaced the earlier patterns of malfeasance.

The much touted system of police accountability through the public safety commissions was a still-born concept. It never took off at the local level as the nominees to these institutions were selected along party and patronage lines thereby eroding the capability of these bodies. Where this Commission showed some teeth, its members were the first ones to bear the brunt of police excess. The naivete of appointing the provincial police officers through a panel, desirable as it is, and ensuring that he (indeed they are all men) completes his tenure foundered at the rocks of provincial politics.

The lure of raw power was reflected in the group allocation preferences that the CSS candidates indicated from 2000 onwards. Joining the Police became the top priority of those who appeared in the competitive examination followed by Customs and Income Tax. It was the Customs group that for some time became the prized service under General Zia ul Haq when the society ought to have become more spiritual in the face of a heavy dose of dubious ‘Islamisation.’ Alas, the monetisation of 1980s; and the brutalisation of ‘governing’ have been the direct results of these authoritarian spells.

Things have come to such a pass that there aren’t enough qualified candidates, in a country of 170 million, to fill in the entry-posts. If on one hand, this trend betrays the decline of institutions, on the other it spells doom for the future of Pakistan’s governance. There can be no compromise on a capable civil service to manage and implement policies. Yes, the private sector is more attractive and perhaps is always so, what about state’s regulatory and redistributive functions? The goal of a capable state cannot be compromised nor ignored.

There is no alternative to increasing the salaries of the civil servants and making the promotion policy and work-environment more attractive. Otherwise, it is a dangerous trend that has already set in. However, it is nor irreversible.

The political parties are now calling for a revision of the devolution system and the monstrous possibility of another disruption looms large. Another ‘revolution’ will further lead to systemic jolts and ensue painful period of transition that might fuel the current climate of instability. There needs to be a two-pronged strategy: implement civil service reforms at the central level and fix the gaps of the local government systems with attention to the way provincial governments set policy and supervise local bodies. The solutions are well known to all and sundry and there is no need for another Commission or a white elephant body to carry the changes through.

If only the political parties (and corporate media) would halt posturing, stop targeting or extolling individuals and focus on institutions. The prospects of this happening are remote but this is a fast changing Pakistan. The moment is now, or perhaps, never.

Source:
[url]http://pakistaniat.com/2008/06/29/civil-services-is-no-longer-an-alluring-career-for-pakistanis/[/url]

AUTHOR: Writing to survive - Nyla Daud
 

[B]October 29, 2006

AUTHOR: Writing to survive

By Nyla Daud
[/B]
Three novels with another one in progress, more than half a dozen collections of short stories, a travelogue, an autobiographical snippet romancing a much physically and spiritually idealised bureaucratic stint in the small-time district of Pakpattan, Muhammad Saeed Sheikh’s field of creative vision is boundless. Sheikh picked up paper and pen seriously rather late in life: almost after 15 years of “roughing” it in the provincial civil service. It was a career to which he owes a lot in terms of creative produce. However, he can now look forward to the end with happy anticipation since he attaches infinitely more worth to his creative identity.

The universally accepted, demi-god-like, portrait of the run of the mill bureaucrat scatters to smithereens as, with humility rare to his breed, he makes the confession, “Yes, I admit that it was because of my official status that I got to see life so up close and in such detail. Those experiences would not have been possible anywhere else. The civil service exposed me to facets of life so profound and so various that they seeped into the sensitivity. So when I began to write, it was but natural that those experiences would be reflected in my work.” To be sure, the late Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi would not have remarked for nothing that, Sheikh has had access to things and places and people which a lot of writers cannot reach. Or perhaps dare not reach out to, even if they happen to be in a position to do so.

He came into the Punjab Civil Service more by default than actual ambition. “The headmaster of my school decided to speak for me when the newspaper people came around to interview me after I had got a first in the Middle Vernacular examination,” he says. The lad from small-time Kamoke had, at best, dreamt of a teaching career. “But they sort of put that idea up in and around my being as profusely as they had garlanded me and pushed me on stage that day and then pulled the ladder from beneath me. There was no way out.” Somewhere he writes how his appointment as a city magistrate suddenly elevated the family status. “I did go through life,” he muses, “with the realisation that my parents had no standing in their circle. So when I got into the PCS, I had basically achieved a lot by family standards. There had been nothing like it before.”

But the oomph did not last long; at least not for him. It turned into a monotonous journey, “Which the service actually is,” he agrees. Another 10 to 12 years and then tedium set in, as the charm of self opening doors and traffic cleared roads wore itself out. “I chose to write for survival. I was questioning myself ceaselessly whether getting to the 20th grade was all that there was to life? Especially when I was a daily witness to a system so unfair that even a cursory exposure to it can destroy the human spirit. Creative writing has given me a catharsis. It has been the answer to the voice of my conscience. It gives me a certain type of moral justification.”

Then the latent idealism made its presence felt; and with what vengeance. For as Sheikh began to write, he would feel the lightening of his torn conscience. The bursts of creativity, fashioned by exposures to the human condition he daily presided over in the course of official duty at times stretched over umpteen pages. Sometimes there would be painful delays in search for the first sentence. But ever since the weir learned to be washed aside, there has been no stopping of the pen. There have come short stories that are born out of incidents as rudimentary as the case of an innocent man sent to jail for a night, or the forest officer indicted on the testimony of a clerical mistake, or a woman pleading for clemency in support of an errant son condemned because he was guilty of a search for inner peace on the wings of home brewed liquor.

But while a lot of his stories are born out of the official experience, Sheikh’s own inherent sensitivity has also had a lot of say. Pampering this sensitivity on the wings of an infinitely enriching wisdom acquired over the years spent on magisterial assignments in the Punjab, Sheikh has penned stories seeing through the folds of social hypocrisy and consequent injustices in a system gone awry. He writes with equal sensitivity of the traumas of childless marriages, of Freudian relationships, of marriages of convenience. Out of the folds of the vast canvas of mortal experience and human misery and the vicissitudes of creature destiny that Sheikh has presided over, came his first novel: Aik Aur Darya. This reflected an outburst of uncontrollable creativity. A complex condominium of basic psychological complexes, of women pushed into matrimony for procreational assignments, of the feminine ethos in consummating remarriage under the spectre of being a war widow, of feudal mindsets and criminal whispering. It was as if un-satiated by the myriad nature of his short stories and their fields of vision, Sheikh wanted to say it all in one go.

But then he is, very obviously, also a man in a hurry, “I feel that I have got so much to say. I am not yet 60 but I feel I have lived twice over. I think I have lived the ages of all my characters. I have to write a lot more because I am also tormented by a recent sensitivity which I have not experienced earlier; that creativity may desert me,” he admits to the multiple layering of his first novel just as he defends his own moral justification to the vast spread of landscape normal to this genre. “A novel tends to lay bare the internals as well as externals of the self. Or perhaps in this first novel I was influenced by Marquez.” He also names Dostoevsky and Herman Heiss. “Aik Aur Darya has not been the result of any lack of focus. It was the result of the diversity of characters, each operating in its own world. There were so many threads once I started writing that I was committed to tying them up individually.”

In his next novel Rang-i-Jahan Aur, Sheikh was a different author. Here was a writer perhaps more in control of his creativity or was it that the subject, a seething comment on the hallowed lifestyle of a blue blooded bureaucrat, and on what it takes to live that hallowed life only to be treated ultimately like the proverbial fly in the ointment … has been a playing field he is deeply familiar with? And this is a field populated by scathing home truths like the rags to riches tale of a middle class boy buying off destiny in a matrimonial deal with a senior bureaucrat’s daughter and the vagaries of fortune that later disillusion him.

Sensitivity and sensibility come together on occasions like when he writes of the woman as a temptress. “Women normally like to live life on the physical, bodily plane,” he writes in DC Nama, the spiritually charged magnum opus born out of his association with Baba Farid during a Pakpattan posting. Very likely to be put in the dock for that highly gender in-sensitive statement, he is quick to defend himself, this time once again on the basis of home truth. “What I have said there is not a theory. It is a statement based on social trends and the crises of being a woman, especially in the rural setup.” Then almost as an afterthought he provides reasoning, “Rabia Basri, Bibi Maryam and Fatima were exceptional women but otherwise, the immediate issue a woman faces, is on the material and the physical plane. So she has to attend to that aspect of her life.”

In DC Nama, Sheikh becomes bolder too, in that out comes the ethos of another kind of injustice. “I feel that in our society injustice is not only done by the people in power over their subordinates. It is a universal phenomenon. Whether it is the stake of the central civil servant over his provincial peer or that of the thanedar over the wrongly indicted respondent in a civil case; injustice is a constant. Then it becomes the ground for self pity. This self pity gives an impetus for creativity. Had I been a central civil servant instead of a provincial one, I would probably not have gone through this path of discovering creativity. Self pity is a very strong motivating factor for a writer. I, too, have gone through it and I don’t rue it, because that has been my lot. So instead of being apologetic, I have used it positively to highlight the pitfalls in the system.”

Currently working as secretary co-operatives to the Government of the Punjab, Saeed Sheikh (like a lot of other civil servant writers) has had to face the allegation of using official assignment as a launching pad for creativity. A lawyer by training, he takes no time to counter these accusations. “It has worked both ways. My being a creative writer has helped me in becoming a more conscientious public servant. My sensitivity to the human condition is something that helps me see even the official world and its duties in a totally different light. This sensitivity has never hindered my efficiency, because I believe efficiency, even in the official sense of the term, does not mean how quickly you move a file but how far you can look beneath the covers, beyond the obvious. In the same way, my official positions have exposed me to all that makes up the world. When I use my sensitivity to help somebody by virtue of my official position, I feel I have written a short story. I believe this is a literary achievement in another sense. I would say of any other state servant who goes the extra mile to solve a petitioner’s problem that he has been creative in the real life sense of the term.”

Sheikh took the road less taken, whereas he could have been like one of the others. He could have, under the flimsy cover of official privilege; by-passed the real life world which most bureaucrats prefer to gloss over. After all it is a fairy tale world the Pakistani bureaucrat inhabits; one which evaporates the moment retirement rings the knoll. Instead of waiting for that time and day, Sheikh resolved to live there and then. The result has been some of the finest literature in contemporary times.

REVIEWS: Political witch hunting - Nur Ahmad Shah
 

[B]December 19, 2004

REVIEWS: Political witch hunting

Reviewed by Nur Ahmad Shah[/B]

The civil service, as an implementing agency for public policies and maintenance of order, is an important pillar on which an edifice of good governance is raised in any country. A distinguishing feature of the British administration in the subcontinent was its civil service which included some outstandingly upright, able and competent officers. They are fondly remembered even to this day for their just, impartial and detached dealings. Because of security and prestige attached to it, the people regarded the Indian Civil Service (ICS) as heaven born. Jawaharlal Nehru, though, found it neither Indian, nor civil nor service.

A.M.M. Shawkat Ali in Bangladesh Civil Service: A Political Administrative Perspective explains how the civil service, starting as a system of patronage in the subcontinent in 1757, in the days of the East India Company, gained virility due to an emphasis on meritocracy, job security and political neutrality. The rot, he argues, started soon after Independence in 1947. Politicization and patronage replaced merit. Neutrality vanished. Politicization, at the level of recruitment, promotion and posting, changed the complexion of civil service. In India, however, it managed to retain, to a large extent, its old ethos. The credit for this, the author gives to India’s mature political leadership and its ability to sustain democracy.

Focusing primarily on the Bangladesh Civil Service, Shawkat Ali draws on examples from other countries including the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. He highlights its different aspects besides his own experience as a member of the once elite Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP). By including a civil servant’s interaction with the judiciary, Parliament and, not the least, the ministers, he has made the study reasonably comprehensive.

The study is based on the empirical evidence collected by the author from Bangladesh. But this, as he himself points out, reflects truly the service conditions in any developing country not least Pakistan. In both the countries, says the author, weak political institutions, military interventions, repeated purges, tampering with civil service as an institution in the guise of administrative reforms or reorganization of services, promulgation of draconian measures like forced removal or retirement sapped the civil servants’ morale and made them vulnerable to the rulers’ whims. Arbitrary appointments to senior positions through lateral entry and induction of military personnel in civil administration in both the countries has distorted the structure of civil service and turned it into a hybrid system.

The author mourns a tendency on the part of political parties in Bangladesh “to enlist support of organized civil service unions of different cadres”, reflected in their desire to fill up important administrative and top management positions by “our men”. It brings in its wake political witch hunting in the shape of “shuffle and reshuffle, forced retirement and prosecution on grounds of alleged corrupt practices”. He castigates the abuse of the noble spirit behind affirmative action which is meant to provide jobs for those suffering from discrimination, by fixing quotas for freedom fighters and their wards in Bangladesh.

The inevitable result of all this, the author concludes, is a bad government. The obsequiousness and servility has made the civil servants akin to party activists if not personal servants. Inefficiency, corruption and maladministration thrive unabated. Few, if any, civil servants engage themselves in the economic development of the area in their charge. Improvement in the lot of the people does not seem to be on their agenda.

While discussing the issue in a comparative perspective with advanced countries such as the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada, the author concedes that there has been an erosion of the high ideals of civil service even in developed nations. There too the civil servants have to contend with political compulsions for their survival. But the system itself continues to remain, by and large, merit based and transparent.

Shawkat Ali is a former civil servant. He belonged to the prestigious and exclusive CSP cadre dubbed by the wags as Central Sultans of Pakistan. He, perhaps, out of class solidarity seems to have shown the civil servants as more sinned against than sinning. He has glossed over their follies which earn them contempt and account for their decline and fall. He has not touched the overweening arrogance and elitism of his compatriots, nor their indifferent and disdainful attitude towards the people. Nor a propensity for lust of power on the part of their opportunistic colleagues found hand in glove with a civilian or military adventurer at the perilous cost of good governance. Thus, the study lacks objectivity and judicious criticism.

Bangladesh Civil Service: A Political-Administrative Perspective
By A.M.M. Shawkat Ali
The University Press, Dhaka Available with Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
Email: [email]ouppak@theoffice.net[/email] Website: [url]www.oup.com.pk[/url]
ISBN 984-05-1702-3
348pp. TK560

How democracy became possible in India - Ilhan Niaz
 

[B]November 03, 2007

How democracy became possible in India

By Ilhan Niaz[/B]

WHEN one thinks of democracy in South Asia, great leaders such as M. A. Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Jawaharlal Nehru, B. R. Ambedkar, and Vallabhai Patel come to mind. In Pakistan, few would probably have heard of Sukumar Sen of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), much less appreciate the role he played as the Indian republic’s first chief election commissioner in laying the administrative foundations upon which democracy in India has been built.

India’s political leadership led by Nehru and Patel grasped a paradoxical truth about democracy in a bureaucratic state like theirs. To enable the politicians have their legitimacy, it was vital that the actual administration of elections proceeded with as little political interference as possible. In other words, in order to ensure their survival and overall dominance the politicians needed to suspend politics when it came to the administration of elections.

Given that India’s leaders wanted to establish a strong — some would argue transcendental — central state, the quality and integrity of the national elections was the key to the success of the democratic experiment. The integrity of provincial and local elections were of secondary and tertiary importance, respectively, given their vastly inferior power and prestige.

Nehru and Patel, against considerable popular and political pressure, retained the ICS, renaming it the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), as well as the Indian Police Service (IPS) and made a few other cosmetic changes to the higher bureaucracy and military officer corps.

Though not always successful, Nehru took it upon himself to shield the higher bureaucracy against any arbitrary interference and allowed it to operate autonomously.

This approach paid handsome dividends. Sukumar Sen and his colleagues in the IAS developed and adapted the election machinery inherited from the British Empire in India in preparation for elections on the basis of universal adult franchise.

With their positions secure and their political master sufficiently enlightened to understand when to stop engaging in politics, a hierarchy of IAS officers employed at the central, provincial, and district levels in coordination with the police and village watchmen administered the largest exercises in the history of electoral democracy. The autonomy and integrity of the IAS was a crucial element in motivating opposition parties to participate in the elections and thus contributed to the credibility of the democratic exercise.

What is intriguing about democracy in India is that although successive elections have brought into power less and less worthy candidates, the electorate’s turnout has consistently increased. In the 1950s the turnout ranged from 40-50 per cent while in recent years it has stood at over 60 per cent. This is in spite of the perception shared by some nine-tenths of Indians that politicians are utterly untrustworthy.

No wonder, in the present Lok Sabha, nearly a fifth of the Congress and BJP MPs are charged with crimes. Almost half the Congress MPs owe money to public institutions. The average Congress MP has assets of over thirty million (Indian) rupees which shows that Indian democracy is a vehicle for the very rich to get elected by the very poor. The strength of India’s educated middle class of a few million households comes from its role as the recruitment pool for the Indian state services, not from the democratic process.

Less than one per cent in a thousand candidates in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations is actually inducted into the state service which is perhaps one reason why the Indian higher bureaucracy is held in much greater esteem than elected politicians.

Indians may not trust their politicians but they do trust, more or less, the administrative process through which the elections are conducted at least at the national level. For all their faults these politicians have maintained the British-era policy of insulation of the military from politics and civil administration. That said, the state apparatus in India has taken a battering since Nehru’s death and is in the process of being politicised with the North Indian heartland worst affected.

While democracy in India has been made possible and sustained by the relative autonomy of its administrative elite and the insulation of its armed forces, the Pakistani political leadership soon after independence turned its back on this “colonial legacy” that India’s politicians wisely cultivated in substance even if they condemned it in rhetoric.

Instead of ensuring the autonomy of the public service commissions and election administrations, the Pakistani politicians set about converting the executive function into an instrument used to perpetuate their own rule.

The 1951 elections in Punjab, the first one to be held on the basis of universal adult franchise in Pakistan, were a case in point. About fifty Punjab MLAs (members of legislative assembly) owed their election to administrative intervention on their behalf. The state apparatus was used by the ruling Muslim League as a political instrument.

This proved self-defeating in two mutually reinforcing ways. One, it undermined the credibility of the democratic exercise and rendered politics highly confrontational.

Two, it brought the administration and the military into politics and led, by April 1953 with Khwaja Nazimuddin’s dismissal, to the eclipse of the politicians and the ascendance of a clique of civil servants and military officers.

In 1972, the politicians got a second chance but instead of ensuring the autonomy and integrity of the services they set about converting the state into a personal estate with a vengeance. To paraphrase Bhutto, they wanted to break the back of the higher bureaucracy in general and the Civil Service of Pakistan in particular.

After five years of purges, lateral entries and unceremonious exits, an invertebrate and politicised bureaucracy — reeling from the purges of 1976 and intuitively aware that Bhutto had planned another purge for May 1977 — went out of its way to please its master.

By going beyond Bhutto’s own wishes, the apparatus produced such a heavy popular mandate that its lack of credibility in the face of a unified opposition brought the entire system to the point of collapse and precipitated another military intervention.

This is not to say that Pakistan’s military rulers have demonstrated a better understanding of the role of the higher bureaucracy in an administrative state. They have done much harm through their attempts to engineer a “managed” democracy suited to the “genius” of the people of Pakistan. Ayub used the administrative apparatus to deliver the ‘basic democrat’ vote and secure seats for his political clients.

It was partly for this reason that the politicians at the receiving end of the administration developed severe hatred for the higher bureaucracy — which they considered, and correctly so, as one of Ayub’s political instruments. Zia proved marginally more competent in that he didn’t use the local bodies as the Electoral College and seemed to understand at some level that Pakistan was an administrative state. His manhandling of national and provincial politics, however, cast a long and dark shadow over Pakistan’s subsequent development.

The present regime and its devolution plan have obliterated even the pretence of administrative autonomy and the nazims, like their basic democrat equivalents, can be expected to deliver their areas.

The question of democracy in Pakistan is not a political but an administrative one. Deals and power-sharing and other shenanigans are irrelevant given that none of the participants understands that democracy in a bureaucratic state is a function of an autonomous, effective, and sufficiently motivated administration. Moreover, in a centralized state like Pakistan the integrity of the national elections is of paramount importance to the success of the democratic enterprise. Pakistan does not suffer, to use the latest fashionable mumbo jumbo, from a “democratic deficit” or insufficient “trust networks.”

It suffers from an administrative deficit in terms of the autonomy of the executive function from political interference. Unless this administrative deficit is made up, the “democratic deficit” does not really matter. Putting this administrative deficit right would entail, among other things, removing the local administration from the control of the nazims, ensuring the autonomy of the Election Commission, and reinvigorating the higher bureaucracy. n

The writer is the author of “An Inquiry into the Culture of Power of the Subcontinent.” [email]niazone@yahoo.com[/email]

RememberingI.A. Khan - Nuzhat Rahman
 

[B]September 8, 2002

RememberingI.A. Khan

By Nuzhat Rahman
[/B]
I.A. Khan was a member of the erstwhile Indian Civil Service (ICS) from the batch of 1939-40. The ICS comprisied of eminent civil servants who rose to the highest ranks in the bureaucracy and judiciary. These included S.S. Jafri, M. Masud (Khadarposh), K.S. Islam and Anwar-ul-Haq (Justice). Like most Muslim ICS officers, I.A. Khan opted for Pakistan serving at the time of partition, as District Magistrate of Murshidabad, a Muslim majority area — which was unfairly given to India. Initially, under the provisional distribution, Murshidabad was declared as part of Pakistan, however in the final announcement it was allotted to India. In fact, I.A. Khan had the rare experience of first hoisting the Pakistani flag and then, quietly in the depth of the night, bringing it down to hoist the Indian flag.

Ikram Ahmed Khan, better known as I.A. Khan was born on the June 1, 1915 at Meerut. His was a family of great nobility. He was the son of Nawab Ismail Khan, a prominent Muslim personality whose cap later came to be known as the ‘Jinnah Cap’. Nawab Ismail, President of UP Muslim League, was himself a dauntless freedom fighter. He was one of the closest associates of Quaid-e-Azam. He twice served as Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University. His father, Nawab Ishak Khan, was the fourth successor of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as the Treasurer/Secretary of the M.A.O College. He himself was the grandson of renowned Urdu and Persian poet Nawab Mustafa Khan Shefta.

Ikram’s early schooling was in Faiz-i-Aam at Meerut and then onto Aligarh in 1930 where he excelled both in studies and sports. He played cricket, hockey and tennis for Aligarh and was also elected to the office of President of the Student Union — a most sought after office for the students at Aligarh. An outstanding student, he graduated with top honours and obtained a First division in BA and First Class First in MA.

As the son of Nawab Ismail Khan, I.A. Khan was privy to the inner circles of the Working Committee of the All India Muslim League. His father made him responsible for the arrangements for the League’s session at Mustafa Castle, besides seeing to the creature comforts of the Quaid-e-Azam and other Muslim leaders.

His professional career started after he joined the elite ICS and completed his training at Cambridge. His first posting was in the Bengal Cadre. The events of the first few years of his career unfolded against the backdrop of the great political drama that led to the creation of Pakistan. I.A. Khan served in Bengal for 18 years in various capacities in Faridpur and District Magistrate Comilla where he was instrumental in setting up the Rural Academy, headed by Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan. After serving as Secretary, Government of Bengal, I.A. Khan was transferred to West Pakistan in 1955 taking over as Chief Controller of Imports and Exports from Dr I.H. Usmani. He held this position with distinction for five years. Thereafter, I.A. Khan was made leader of Pakistan’s first trade delegation to India, which led to opening of trade between the two countries. Later in 1961, he was again posted back to East Pakistan, this time as Chairman Jute Board, headquartered at Narayanganj, taking over from his batch-mate K.S. Islam.

In 1962, I.A. Khan was selected as a fellow of the Eisenhower Exchange Programme which took him to USA for a year. For I.A. Khan it was rather unexpected to have been picked up from the remote jute centre of Narayanganj. In 1966, he moved to West Pakistan taking over as Secretary Economic Affairs Division from S. Osman Ali. During three years as Secretary, I.A. Khan successfully organized the Colombo Plan Conference at Karachi in 1967. In 1969, after the first bureaucratic reshuffle by President Yahya Khan, I.A. Khan was appointed Chairman WAPDA, taking over from A.G.N. Kazi. As Chairman, he saw through the successful implementation of the country’s largest project, Tarbela Dam.

At the age of 58, I.A. Khan retired honourably in 1973 under the most troubled days of bureaucracy. After retirement, he never sought any other office, nor recognition and distanced himself from active public life. His contributions to Pakistan were recognized when he was awarded the Sitara-i-Quaid-e- Azam in 1958 and Sitara-i-Pakistan in 1969. But these contributions extend beyond the bureaucratic confines.

I.A. Khan’s involvement in cricket and hockey continued long after his Aligarh days — perhaps playing the longest innings as a force behind the development and organization of cricket in Pakistan. In 1967, as Federal Secretary, I.A. Khan was nominated as Manager of the Pakistan cricket team touring England. At the time, his appointment was considered quite unusual for such a high ranking officer. It was later learnt that President Ayub Khan himself made the choice. As Chairman WAPDA in 1969, I.A. Khan took over as President BCCP (now PCB) from Syed Fida Hassan. It was during his tenure that BCCP permanently shifted to Lahore. It was I.A. Khan who appointed A.H. Kardar as the Chairman of the Selection Committee in 1969, thus bringing Kardar back into the cricket fold. Known for his firm grip on matter of discipline, for I.A. Khan the honour of representing Pakistan was supreme, as cricket in those days was still considered a gentleman’s game. He strongly opposed the Kerry Packer adventure. He also took considerable interest in the promotion of Table Tennis at Islamia Club, being a patron and its founding member along with top ICS Officers like Akhtar Hussain, Abbas Khalili, S.M. Yusuf and S.S. Jafri.

Throughout his career, I.A. Khan remained President of various cricket associations and also served as President of Karachi Hockey Association. All along he was a selector of the cricket teams and also served as Chairman of the Selection Committee. While Kafiluddin Ahmed of PWD was instrumental in the establishment of the National Cricket Stadium at Karachi, I.A. Khan played that role in East Pakistan in establishing the Dacca Cricket Stadium. He even designed the emblem of the Cricket Board. He also initiated the Patrons Trophy and the formation of teams such as Karachi Whites and Karachi Blues. I.A. Khan was also a permanent feature of the bygone days of Karachi Gymkhana and a member of its cricket team.

An illustrious career spanning over four decades, whether as Chairman WAPDA, or President BCCP or any other, official or non-official capacity in his long service of devotion and dedication, I.A. Khan gave his best to Pakistan. He appreciated the finer things of life, whether it was the latest English novel or a book of enchanting Urdu poetry, or a piece of music or sports like golf, tennis and of course cricket. He devoted himself as honorary Chairman of Meerut Cooperative Housing Society for as long as twenty years. A selfless man, gentleman to the core, I.A. Khan was an example of grace, dignity and self-respect. He had tremendous style and sartorial grace, he was an epitome of a modern enlightened Muslim, at home with eastern and western culture. He passed away peacefully on Friday 7th September 2001 at Karachi. He is survived by his wife and five children. May his soul rest in eternal peace.

Thoughts on police reforms - Ikram Sehgal
 

[B]Thursday, September 16, 2010

Thoughts on police reforms

Ikram Sehgal[/B]

None of the reforms suggested by eminent retired police officers, without exception all belonging to the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP), addresses their despicable treatment of the overwhelming majority (92 per cent) of Provincial Police Officers (PPOs). Without any shadow of a doubt, that is the root cause of the police system’s failure to perform in accordance with its capacity and potential. This recurring failure over the years to rectify this blatant discrimination has destroyed the effectiveness of our law enforcement machinery as it once was, and should be in the present and for the future.

The Police Order of 2002 increased senior police posts almost by 300 per cent. More than 15 per cent of the police budget funds police administrators in the form of a long chain of supervisors above the DSP (and SHO) level-i.e. ASP, SP, SSP, DIG, Additional IG and IG. By putting in place a similar rank-structure as the armed forces, the police hierarchy is trying to run a community service along military lines. These ranks do not exist in crime-free societies. No organisation, not even in the private sector, can afford or perform efficiently with multiple layers of supervisors. Their output can be gauged from the adverse reports appearing in the media on a daily basis.

All developed countries have a local “community-based” model of policing. Under the law, the interface of the police with the state ends at the level of the police station, because the final report of the investigation of any registered case is submitted to court by the officer in charge of a police station. The investigating officer has an authority delegated by the magistrate to collect evidence for the ascertainment of facts and present it before the magistrate for further action. With the additional chain of supervisers in a society heavily dependant upon client-patron relationships, the moment a complaint gets filed, rival parties approach their respective contacts in the police hierarchy to try and influence the enquiry, and the investigating officer starts getting conflicting instructions from his many bosses. Or, as one SHO in Karachi’s elite DHA/Clifton area put it, “Previously I had to look after the SP, now I have to ensure water tankers are delivered to six houses, the ASP’s, SP’s, SSP’s, DIG’s, AIG’s and the IG’s.”

When the British created the Imperial Police Service to control the provinces and the communities, they did so in a manner that best served their colonial interests and accommodated the white man at top jobs. The policing arrangements under the Police Act, 1861, passed by the Central Legislature was kept quite simple and flexible, leaving the option to the provinces to adopt it as a provincial law and improve upon it according to local cultures and conditions.

Consequently, three different models of the police organisation-the Commissionerate, the Directorate and the Inspectorate-came into being in South Asia. The worst one of them, the “Inspectorate,” was based on the Irish Constabulary. It was designed to be militaristic, the prime aim being to crush people. Unfortunately, this was adopted in Pakistan with the creation of One Unit. Previously, it had been applicable only to Punjab Police, Sindh and Balochistan being regulated under the Bombay Police Act.

The Police Order 2002 focused on the perks and promotion of senior ranks, rather than on the reform of the police organisation to enable it to become more approachable by citizens. The focal point of the service, the police station, has been ignored in terms of resources and professional staff, with the consequent deterioration in the quality of leadership.

PSP officers control all promotions and postings with an overwhelming bias against the PPOs. Notwithstanding their performance of the most hazardous duties, the PPOs have virtually no prospects of promotion. A graphic illustration of the frustration is disciplinary punishments within the police department. Up to 28 per cent of the personnel receive punishments every year. In three years all members of the department’s staff have been punished in one way or another. Incidentally, not a single superviser, a PSP officer has received punishment in any form.

With all avenues of vertical promotions capped by the Establishment Division, PPOs and other departmental ranks have become completely frustrated, and therefore do not put their heart and soul into public service. The police being exclusively a provincial subject in the constitution, how is the Establishment Division able to make rules and carry out promotions for provincial police departments?

The general perception prevailing among provincial ranks is that performance of duty, the sacrifices entailed and punishments are meant for the PPOs while the luxuries and comforts of bungalows and cars are for those who really have no stake in the system. Even if allegations of corrupt practices are proven against any PSP officer, the officer is posted to another province or some federal agency, rather than be subjected to disciplinary action.

In the Sialkot incident of Aug 15, the DPO stated openly in court before the chief justice that since he is a PSP officer no one can do anything to him. Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif had to beg Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani for days for the suspension of a Grade 18 PSP officer. In such circumstances, how can the provincial government be responsible for law and order when it has no, or very limited, control over police officers?
The service-entry exam does have merit, but that does not by itself make an officer superior for his entire life. His advancement must be based on performance. The annual policing plans and police-administration reports, and the Police Gazette are important public documents that record the expenditures being made. These should be transparent and available for public consumption. In the UK the Home Office ensures publication of these important documents in newspapers and on the Internet.

Oversight by the district magistrate over the police was taken away in Police Order 2002 and replaced by the Public Safety Commissions and the Independent Police Complaint Authority. While promotions to senior ranks and expansion of the police organisation have taken place, these two entities are still non-existent. This being despite the Supreme Court’s directions for early establishment of such institutional arrangements.

Provincial Civil Service (PCS) officers are agitating for their rights in Punjab. If they go through with their threatened strike in support of their demands, the PSP will sit back and instruct the PPOs to quell their protests. Overwhelming majorities in their respective cadres, and both PCS and PPOs, are victims of injustice at the hands of a minuscule majority. In the “divide and rule” gambit they will be used against each other.

Rather than attempts to reform the laws, what is really required is a drastic reorganisation of the service structure of the police to reduce the layers of command, and bring the police under the actual control of the provincial governments.

Only a well-trained and efficient police force not being subject to influence can combat our steady slide towards anarchy. Is this possible when more than 92 per cent of the police officers remain aggrieved at the injustice being meted out to them by less than eight per cent?

The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email [email]isehgal@pathfinder9.com[/email]

Samuel Martin Burke (1906-2010): Civil Servant, Diplomat, Historian
 

[B]December 1, 2010

Samuel Martin Burke (1906-2010): Civil Servant, Diplomat, Historian

Adil Najam[/B]

I wish I had heard of Samuel Martin Burke before he died at age 104 a few weeks ago (on 9 October, 2010).

[CENTER][IMG]http://pakistaniat.com/images/Samuel-Martin-Burke-01.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://pakistaniat.com/images/Samuel-Martin-Burke-02.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

He was, by everything I have now found about him, a remarkable man. I am sure there are other Pakistanis who have also never heard of him. For them, I wanted to write this belated obituary post so that they may be introduced to him. I hope there are also those amongst our readers who have not only heard of him but know more about him and his life. I write this belated obituary post for them too; in the hope that they may share their own thoughts and rememberances of Samuel Martin Burke with us.

This obituary of Samuel Martin Burke, published in [URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8141199/Professor-Samuel-Burke.html"]The Telegraph[/URL], gives us the rich essentials of his rich life. It is worth quoting in full:

[QUOTE]Professor Samuel Burke, who died on October 9 aged 104, was one of very few Indians to become a senior official in the Indian Civil Service under the British Raj; following Partition, he helped to set up the Foreign Office in Pakistan and became an ambassador for the country, serving in 11 different capitals. After retirement from the diplomatic service he became an academic in the United States, publishing a number of books on the history of India and the politics of Pakistan.

Samuel Martin Burke was born on July 3 1906 at Martinpur, a small Christian village near Faisalabad in what is now Pakistan. His father was the headmaster of a school and wrote poems under the pseudonym Burq (“lightning” in Urdu), which was adopted as the family’s surname. Exceptionally bright, Samuel took a first class degree in History and a masters at the Government College of Lahore before passing the Indian Civil Service (ICS) exams in 1931.

He rose to be a High Court judge and, in the closing phase of British rule in India, served as chairman of the three-man election petitions committee for the Punjab, set up to consider appeals against the results of the general election of December 1945, which had pitted the Congress Party, supporting a united India, against the Muslim League, campaigning for an independent Pakistan.

The commission had been appointed on the recommendation of the then prime minister of the Punjab, Sir Khizer Hayat Khan, whose Unionist Party was propped up by the Congress Party, and was thus regarded with suspicion by the Muslim League. But Burke did not hesitate to give judgments in favour of the League where he felt they were warranted.

While the commission was still sitting, Indian political parties agreed to the formation of Pakistan, and a circular was sent to members of the ICS asking whether they wished to serve India or Pakistan or to retire. Burke felt that the only way he could assure leaders of all the political parties of his continued impartiality was to make it plain that he was not interested in government service in either country. Accordingly, he became the only Asian civil servant who decided to retire on August 15 1947.

By this time, however, his reputation was such that he was invited by both Congress and the League to come out of retirement. Since he had been born in what became Pakistan, he decided to serve in Pakistan.

The West Pakistan government offered him a ministry to represent the Christian minority, but he chose to join the newly-created Foreign Service. He was given charge of the two most important portfolios: India (with which innumerable partition disputes were in progress), and the United Nations (where the Kashmir dispute was being debated in 1948).

His first appointment abroad was in 1949 as counsellor to the High Commission in London. At a time when Pakistan was still wrestling with matters arising from Independence this was the country’s largest foreign mission. In 1952, he was transferred to Washington as counsellor, but was soon promoted to the rank of minister.

Because of recurrent crises with India, Pakistan had decided to request military assistance from the United States, and to earn American goodwill Burke and his English-born wife Louise undertook nationwide speaking tours, his own Christian faith helping to undermine negative stereotypes about his country. His efforts soon began to bear fruit. In the food crisis of 1953, America promptly shipped a large quantity of wheat to Pakistan as a gift.

After Washington, he served as Chargé d’Affaires in Rio de Janeiro, and as Deputy High Commissioner in London. He then became the first Christian head of a Pakistani diplomatic mission, as Minister to Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark from 1953 to 1956. When the Commonwealth heads of mission in Stockholm gave a reception during a state visit of the Queen, they chose Burke to escort her during her walkabout.

After a spell in south-east Asia as first resident ambassador to Thailand, Burke was appointed to his final diplomatic posting, as High Commissioner in Canada from 1959 to 1961, when he signed an agreement for the peaceful uses of atomic energy which enabled Pakistan to purchase uranium from Canada.

Burke retired from Pakistan’s Foreign Service to take up a new chair in South Asian Studies created for him at the University of Minnesota.

His books include Foreign Policy of Pakistan, and he also advised on the compilation of A Historical Atlas of South Asia. Burke continued to write after he and his wife moved to England. Akbar the Greatest Mogul, published in India, won a commendation from Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. With Salim Al-Din Quraishi, he also wrote Bahadur Shah, the Last Mogul Emperor of India; The British Raj in India; and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, His Personality and His Politics, in which he argued that, contrary to received wisdom, it was Gandhi, not Jinnah, who introduced religion into Indian politics and ultimately drove Muslims and Hindus apart. Burke was appointed to the Sitara-e-Pakistan, Pakistan’s highest honour, by President Ayub Khan.

He was predeceased by his wife, whom he married in 1933, and by a daughter. Three other daughters survive him.[/QUOTE]

Another obituary, in [URL="http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/samuel-burke-a-jurist-devoted-to-civil-service"]The National[/URL], adds some more details (some excerpts):

[QUOTE]Samuel Burke was the longest lived member of the Indian Civil Service and one of the few Punjabis to have served in a senior position under the Raj. He went on to distinguish himself as an incorruptible jurist, one of Pakistan’s first ambassadors, an academic and an author… he was the son of Janab Khairuddin, a headmaster and the village’s first graduate. Burke’s grandfather had been the first Christian convert in his family. Janab Khairuddin wrote poetry using the nom de plume Burj (Urdu for “lightning”), which was anglicised to Burke.

Young Sam won a scholarship to Government College in Lahore (now Government College University). He initially studied science with a view to medicine, but found it left little time for cricket. He switched to history, philosophy, Persian and Urdu and achieved first-class honours. A master’s degree in history followed. In 1928, he sat for the Indian Civil Service exams and was selected to study administration and law in Britain. He returned to India and made progress as a rare, non-white “burra Sahib” in British India. As a district head and sessions judge he was hailed for his honesty.

… At 103, by then in a nursing home in Watlington, Oxfordshire, near one of his daughters, he recalled, eight decades earlier, bowling out the maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, a passionate cricketer. In awe of the maharaja and in spite of Burke’s appeal, the umpire claimed not to see it.[/QUOTE]

A third obituary, written by [URL="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8659f4e2-f3fa-11df-886b-00144feab49a.html#axzz16v23bIxa"]Nisar Ali Shah on the FT website[/URL] adds yet more detail and nuance (some excerpts):

[QUOTE]… As a young man he helped rule what was then British India, first as a district officer and later as a judge. At the time of partition – when millions were on the move, often amid great violence – he won the respect of politicians in both India and Pakistan for his scrupulous fairness, not least in settling disputed election results. As a diplomat representing his fledgling state to countries that had barely heard of Pakistan, he put his nation on the global map, forging strong ties with the US in particular. As an academic he wrote the biographies and the histories for which ultimately he may be best remembered.

… He pressed Pakistan’s interests in the US even after becoming an academic. In 1970 he had an extraordinary confrontation with Chester Bowles, the US ambassador to India, who wrote in the Minneapolis Tribune urging the US against supplying military hardware to Pakistan. Burke took him to task in the same newspaper, sending both articles to President Richard Nixon of the US. The sale to Pakistan of 100 tanks went ahead.

…He was approaching 100 but still writing when I last visited him at his home in England. In his autobiography, never made public, he wrote: “If I had the chance of living my life all over again, I would like to marry the same woman and have the same careers in the same order in which they actually happened.”[/QUOTE]


Source:
[url]http://pakistaniat.com/2010/12/01/samuel-martin-burke/[/url]

From around the forum
 

There are some good articles already posted elsewhere on the forum. Here are a few.

1 - [URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/42867-post1.html"]Fall of the DMG empire[/URL] by Iftekhar A. Khan

2 - [URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/204452-post1.html"]Balancing the civil service[/URL] By Ikram Sehgal

3 - [URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/170898-post1.html"]Reforming Pakistan's Civil Service[/URL], a report by Crisis Group

4 - [URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/41156-post1.html"]Civil services in tatters[/URL] by Ansar Abbasi

5 - [URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/244077-post1.html"]Javed Akbar ko jurm tasleem ker laina chaiye[/URL] by Javed Chaudhry

I will keep adding to them if I find more.

New local government — good or bad by Zafar Iqbal
 

[B]1 August, 2009

New local government — good or bad

Zafar Iqbal
[/B]
THE new local government system installed in 2001 is not necessarily bad, except that the manner in which it has been implemented is rather pig-headed. It is anti-deputy commissioner, probably deliberately so.

The election of nazims was supposed to be non-political. The secret expectation was clearly that they would be supporters of the military government. In the 2002 elections it probably went according to the plan and the PPP and the PML-N became minorities in parliament.

On the other hand local government became even more corrupt. The police were handed over to the nazims and, according to my personal experience, the district police officer did whatever the nazim wanted him to do. In order to show that the police were independent of the nazim the Police Act was modified. This made everything worse.

Civil servants who worked in the provinces will confirm this, except that since the present government is anti-nazim their statements are not likely to be believed unless they have recently retired, and even then they would be doubted. In India they have separated the judiciary from the executive, but the responsibility for maintenance of law and order rests with the DC.

In principle, elected local government is a desirable development. When one takes Pakistan’s social and political environment one has to adjust the institution efficiency. In this case the other EDOs would report to the DC who would report to the nazim. This would lead to a certain amount of friction between the nazim and the DC — assuming that the DC was committed to public service. The other issue would be development expenditure. Was it designed for the personal benefit of the nazim or for benefiting the citizens of the area?

Assuming that nazims were elected through a free and fair process they may not necessarily belong to the party in power at the provincial level. Fair play is not part of our political process as yet. But given a relatively free and objective media this may gradually happen. Seeing how the media is behaving at present creates some doubts: they are very careful about criticising the people currently in power, although they had no hesitation in going after Gen Musharraf.

The reason is quite clear if one has read exposés of the Indian press by Rahul Singh and Kuldip Nayar. The capitalist owners of the press have to be careful not to upset the government which has various means of harassment at its disposal. Gen Musharraf likes to defer matters until he has to act in desperation which he did on Nov 3, 2007. Any person with better sense, if he wanted to do that sort of thing, would have done it on March 8 instead.

If the Musharraf regime had been objective about local government, they should have visited India and possibly Sri Lanka. In the West, visits to France, the UK and US would have been useful. There are differences in all three. In France, until recently it was the prefect who monitored the local government — not entirely dissimilar to arrangements in India. In the UK and US things are a bit different. The police there reports to the county chief constable or sheriff.

In the US, I have only experience of California where the police reported to the city manager. This concept was introduced in America to improve the quality of local administration. The city manager/county manager reported to the mayor in council. Since vocational training is important in the US the selection of such people began to shift to individuals who had acquired an MPA degree.

My friend Walter Hahn, who was the city manager of the town to which I was attached, ultimately obtained a master’s degree in public administration along with his son, Curt, from the University of Southern California. He sent me a newspaper cutting which showed both father and son receiving their degrees on the same day. He subsequently moved on to become the city manager of San Diego.

As mentioned earlier, the concept of ‘manager’ was introduced to improve the performance of local government. In Pakistan Gen Musharraf tried to do the opposite by trying to weaken the role of the DC. Perhaps it was the result of conscious or subconscious sibling rivalry. His eldest brother was supposed to be the clever son of the family and as was popular those days joined the Civil Service, renamed by ZAB as the District Management Group and levelled with other services.Currently there is a lot of talk of doing away with the nazim. An elected local government is, in many ways, part of democracy. Checks and balances on the power of the nazim can always be there. The DC will represent the provincial government. There will be some tension between the nazim and the DC especially if the nazim represents another political party. In case he or she is a member of the political party in power the DC will be at a disadvantage.

It all depends on the quality of political governments which tend to be dictatorial rather than democratic. But this is an evolutionary process which will come to a stop unless we continue trying to practise democracy with emphasis on suitable institutional development. Its main constituents are a competent non-political machinery of government, generally referred to as the bureaucracy. A free and diligent media and a competent and independent judiciary, given how we have been drifting over the years, are not easy to bring about.

The other major issue is revenues which should be assigned to the district government. In India, about 100 years ago, with the evolution of increasing government responsibility, a matrix system had naturally evolved. It was not celebrated: it was simply taken as a fact of life. When one comes to think of it all provincial departments such as the police, magistracy, education, health, irrigation, etc operate in the manner trumpeted in business as a great development — the matrix system. Like all systems, it has its pluses and minuses.

The people in power should try and make local government more efficient instead of abolishing it

Civil Service Se Foreign Service Tak - Ata ul Haq Qasmi
 

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Constructing a frontline police service - Mosharraf Zaidi
 

Civilian law enforcement agencies in Pakistan have long been the butt of cruel jokes, even if the sarcasm and anger towards them is sometimes well-founded. The deliberate targeting of Pakistani law-enforcers by terrorists, however, is no laughing matter. Yesterday’s attack on the emergency respondent headquarters in Lahore was at least the fifth attack on police in Lahore. The Lahore FIA offices were attacked less than two years ago, followed by a suicide bombing on a police post near the Lahore High Court, followed by the attack on the Sri Lankan team, followed by the attack on the Manwan police academy. This is not counting numerous attacks on the FIA and police posts in Islamabad and in interior Punjab. And of course, by now most Pakistanis have lost count entirely of how many times the paramilitary forces and police have been targeted by terrorists in FATA, in settled districts in NWFP and particularly in Peshawar. Whatever the terrorists may want in terms of ideological riff raff, it’s clear what they want operationally. They want to terminate the Pakistani state.

Many analysts are often sceptical of the capacity of terrorists to successfully take over Pakistan. They are even more sceptical of the notion that the nukes that Pakistan has built are lying around waiting to be seduced by Bin Laden and his Taliban cohorts. The scepticism is well-founded on the back of the Pakistani military. For decades, by consuming the lion’s share of resources in this country, Pakistan’s formal military has built up a massive infrastructure that will, when push comes to shove, successfully prevent terrorists from stealing Pakistan, or its nukes. In Swat, since May 8, we are seeing exactly that thesis play itself out. When motivated, the Pakistani military is more than capable of destroying the resistance of terrorists.

That’s why the terrorists are targeting Pakistan’s law enforcement entities. Decimating the physical resistance of the Pakistani police and destroying their mental and emotional resolve is the terrorists’ way of getting around the military. Pakistani cops are poorly paid, deeply stigmatised and severely under-equipped. They are a soft-target.

Investing in more equipment, raising police salaries and moving towards eliminating the Brahmin-Shudra divide in the Pakistani police services are the quick fix things that governments (federal and provincial) have clearly already begun doing. Doing that has produced results visible to anyone watching the drama play out in Lahore, live. The speed with which the police system responded to the attack was impressive, relative to its recent track record.

Quick fixes will not solve the problem for the medium and long term, however. Pakistan’s police forces suffer from structural dysfunction of several kinds. Local authority over police forces, vested in indirectly elected district nazims, has not really worked — either because local politicians are too prone to using the police to settle petty rivalries, or because not enough authority is vested in them.

But we also know that the old commissionerate system was hardly a beacon of light — either from an integrity, or a law-enforcement, or an administrative perspective. The colonial model of command and control local administration was not only undemocratic, it actually never really worked.

Of course, one of the core issues is that the police officer that makes decisions is always on loan when making those decisions. The All Pakistan Unified Grades (APUG) of the civil service essentially ensures that a federal employee makes executive decisions in both districts and provinces — all the while pretending to be a subsidiary resource. But subsidiary resources should be invested in the location of their jobs — instead of looking to their mothership, the Establishment Division in Islamabad. This then raises the issue of whether there is really such a thing as a provincial police force at all, what to say of district police services. Every key official of these forces is a federal civil servant, not a provincial one.

Some major technical issues will persist even if structures are sorted out. Investigative capacity outside the FIA is virtually non-existent. Standout examples of innovation and service delivery (like Rescue 15) tend to be politically driven, and are entirely dependent on fiscal pump-priming. The intelligence and counter-intel capacity of the police is also limited.

To repulse the deliberate targeting of Pakistan’s increasingly heroic police forces, legislative measures empowering the police need to be taken, direct executive oversight needs to be strengthened, and dramatic increases in investments in intelligence capacity, investigative capacity, and raw firepower need to be made.

Ultimately, all the behind-the-scenes investment needs to be buttressed with raw firepower that becomes a visible manifestation of legitimate state muscle, like in Turkey. Large, Gladiator-esque young people manning police posts should be tooled with armoured personnel carriers, Kevlar vests, more sophisticated weapons, and an air of overwhelming self-confidence. When a law-abiding citizen sees a cop, she mustn’t feel pity. She must feel secure. When a criminal or a terrorist sees a cop, he should feel his knees buckle with fear — fear of God Almighty, and fear of the bruising he will suffer if he’s out of line. Pakistanis would much prefer a police all dressed up with nowhere to go, rather than to leave them out in the cold, as we have for so many years.

Will FPSC chief oversee senior bureaucratic promotions
 

Will FPSC chief oversee senior bureaucratic promotions

By Khawar Ghumman

ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: A two-day meeting of the Central Selection Board (CSB) will be held next week to take decision about promotion of civil servants to BS-21 amid a debate on whether it should be presided over by the chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) or a top bureaucrat.

Under an amendment introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf to Section 9 of the Civil Servants Act of 1973, the FPSC chief was made the ex-officio chairman of the CSB. The move was aimed at securing complete control over the civil bureaucracy.

Later, when Gen (retd) Musharraf developed differences with Lt-Gen Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani, the FPSC chairman he himself had appointed, he cut
short the tenure of the post from five to three years through an amendment to the Constitution.

Lt-Gen (retd) Kiyani published two annual reports in which he severely criticised the Shaukat Aziz government for bypassing FPSC’s rules and regulations to place his favourites on key posts. He also challenged his early removal from the post.

The present government, through a presidential ordinance, took away the chairmanship of the CSB from FPSC chief and gave it back to the establishment secretary who headed the board until after the adoption of the 18th Amendment. But under the amendment a presidential ordinance
cannot be re-promulgated unless a resolution to that effect is adopted by either house of parliament.

As a result, the job of heading the CSB went back to the FPSC Chairman, Justice (retd) Rana Bhagwandas.

A meeting of the board has not been held since the prime minister’s decision of Sept 4 last year to promote 54 bureaucrats to grade 22 which was annulled by the Supreme Court on April 27. A number of deserving bureaucrats have retired during the period.

The delay in holding a CSB meeting is having a crippling effect on the administration.

“During the next six to eight months, 19 of 55 federal secretaries will retire and under the new promotion rules an officer should have at least two years of service in BS-21 to get a promotion to BS-22. Therefore, the government will have no option but to offer extension to retiring officers,” a federal secretary said.

The new rules were formulated in August on the directives of the Supreme Court.

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat unanimously approved and presented on Thursday a report on a proposed amendment to the Civil Servants Act to allow the prime minister to appoint the CSB chairman.

Most bureaucrats are of the view that top officers head the promotion boards in other civil and military departments and there is nothing wrong if the secretary of the establishment or cabinet division is given the responsibility as has been the practice in the past.

Critics of the proposed amendment allege that the government wants to place someone of its choice as the head of the CSB to promote its favourites.

A retired federal secretary said the civil bureaucracy had been continuously witnessing an increasing encroachment by successive governments since the early 1970s. As a result, he said, the bureaucracy had been politicised and the officials worked to appease the rulers of the day instead of fulfilling their basic responsibility of serving the people.

“The only way to curb corruption is to reform the bureaucracy on the lines suggested by the Quaid-i-Azam that a civil servant should only be loyal to the state and not to the rulers, which is only possible if the governments stop interfering in their domain,” he said.

[B]Source: [/B]
[url]http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/25/will-fpsc-chief-oversee-senior-bureaucratic-promotions.html[/url]

Intazamia ka Buhraan - Fazal Haq
 

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[CENTER][B][SIZE="4"]The rise and fall of CSP[/SIZE][/B]
[B]By Anjum Niaz[/B][/CENTER]

Before the quota evil set in, post-independence Pakistan got the best and the brightest boys entering the CSP. Not anymore, though

When I was growing up in the ‘60s, the boilerplate for a dream husband was a CSP. To bag one was everyone’s chase. The mama of the CSP considered her son a swell catch for her to demand anything in the dowry — say a car, imported wardrobe for her son, a beautiful house with value-added gadgets thrown in — from the girl’s family.

Greed had ballooned to ugly heights manifested in the prenuptials and wish lists brazenly forwarded from CSP-wallahs. One heard of many a betrothal cut asunder because the made-to-order dowry wasn’t good enough. Bidding wars were the norm and ditched maidens, no matter how fair, a common sight.

Simply called CSP, who then was this chap inducted in the Civil Service of Pakistan? To demystify this ‘piece of moon’ or chaand ka tukra as he was known, let’s cut through the moonshine showered around his persona. We will find that he was an ordinary guy, smart, clever and a nerd perhaps, to have cleared the exam and more importantly the viva voce. Any graduate could sit for the yearly exam, irrespective of caste, creed, wealth, status and gender. You could be a peasant or a prince, it was irrelevant as long as you were bright. A level playing field was provided for all, especially before the curse of the quota system botched up merit and brought in nincompoops by the dozens.

Post-independence (before the quota evil set in), Pakistan got the best and the brightest boys entering the CSP. Groomed to be rulers, the young men led charmed lives right from the time they were handed charge of a district, division or a government department. They were the acknowledged kings. They were the accepted benevolent rulers enjoying undiluted powers vested in them by the centre or the governor of the province where they served.

The CSPs may have developed outsized egos. They may have taken themselves too seriously. Some may have become arrogant, others haughty. Their wives may have thrown their weight around as big begum sahibas and terrorized the lesser beings around them. Their children may have been conscious of their daddies’ pelf, power and perks. Their relatives may have tried using their connections for getting petty work done.

But in sum, the CSPs of those halcyon days were not a corrupt cadre. Nor were they hustlers (except for one or two.) Neither were they jockeys riding political power horses. They were plain boring paper-pushers; bureaucratic babus. The diligent ones brought home a box full of files every night that needed close scrutiny and quick decisions. Disposing of public business was their training ingrained into them from the beginning. The common man received swift, fair and transparent hearing from these officials, albeit stiff-necked with shades of brown sahib still prevalent in their carriage despite the Brits having quit our soil in 1947.

Enter the military. But wait, before we bring in the much maligned military, there arose another force from within the service that hijacked the CSP cadre and destabilized the political process in Punjab after partition. It was known as the police.

The IG or the inspector-general of police enjoyed unlimited powers. He had the ear of the governor and the chief minister. The IG was also head of the province’s intelligence agency, known as the CID (Criminal Investigation Department). “This CID had been the most hated and dreaded organization in Punjab for several decades before independence. It could make or mar the career of young men or act as an oppressive force against peaceful citizens in several ways,” writes an officer who belonged to the Indian Civil Service (ICS) which was the precursor of the CSP.

When the first battle began between the first governor of Punjab, Sir Francis Mudie, and the Muslim League appointed chief minister the Khan of Mamdot, IG police Qurban Ali Khan supported Governor Mudie. More about the spat later.

The Englishman Mudie then turned his guns on the acting chief secretary, Khawaja Abdul Rahim, and another officer, Hassan Akhtar. He directed senior officials to conduct an inquiry against them. Manzur Qadir was picked by Mudie to act both as procurer of evidence and a prosecutor counsel. “What Manzur Qadir did was to walk into my room in the late afternoon every day and to ask me to send for a particular official and get me to record his statement with reference to the subject matter known to him. After the statement of two officials were recorded in this manner on two consecutive days, l told Manzur Qadir that while l was no lawyer, l had administered law for a number of years, the procedure was open to serious objection and would most probably be inadmissible in evidence. When the case came up before the court, objection was taken by the defence counsel to Manzur Qadir appearing as prosecution counsel,” remembers the man who was serving as the chief secretary then.

As anticipated the court held that the counsel had sought to act both as an investigator and prosecutor and this was against the canons of law and justice. The court called upon Manzur Qadir to withdraw from the case. This case attracted a lot of notoriety in the press. Abdur Rahim was in due course removed from service but allowed compassionate pension. Hassan Akhtar was also removed from service after the court had held charges framed against him as established.

This was the first assault on the Civil Service of Pakistan from outsiders.

And the last occurred recently when four members of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) suffered collateral damage because of the reported falling out of their chairman, Gen (retd) Jamshed Kiani, with the president and the prime minister. Bureaucrats are not meant to talk to the press, but the general who belonged to the famous 10 Corps that has conducted coups on civilian governments in the past including the last one on Nawaz Sharif with Kiani at the helm unilaterally decided to go to the press and open up his heart.

But if Gen Kiani’s conscience didn’t allow him to keep silent over promotions and extensions ordered by the prime minister, he should have resigned instead of continuing in his job and at the end of the day, call the press to speak evil of the prime minister and president. As an officer and a gentleman, the best course for him would have been to request the president to relieve him of his chairmanship as it was not possible for him to accept the two undeserving candidates the prime minister had cleared for promotion.

Why drag in the four former bureaucrats, members of the FPSC, into the fray and take them down with him? To get rid of Kiani, an ordinance limiting the tenure to three years instead of five was passed and the four bureaucrats who had completed their three years were told to go home. Hence the collateral damage that these four suffered.

Why have a general head the FPSC is my quarrel with the chief executive of the country. Under him the militarization of civil service has made the CSPs and the CSS (Central Superior Services) a deadwood. How did it happen and why did the bureaucrats permit infiltration from the khakis in their ranks is a story of deceit, betrayal, intrigue and above all a breach among the bureaucratic ranks that defies repair.

[CENTER][B][SIZE="4"]The CSP: dead as a dodo[/SIZE][/B]
By Anjum Niaz[/CENTER]

Some passerby may some day decide to go deep-sea diving and bring ashore the sunken vessel that has buried within it the secrets of the rise and fall of the CSP

NOT one to harp on my articles past, nor reproduce emails from afar, as some columnists do, I must perforce revisit ‘The rise and fall of the CSP’ only to round up some more kinetic energy among the CSPs (Civil Service of Pakistan) and their many antagonists. The ‘Letters to the Editor’ column of this newspaper and other dailies indicate a lively proclivity for bureaucrat-bashing by letter writers. It seems the public is not in a forgiving mood; nor are the CSPs ready to accept the charge of administering with arrogance, even though the service today is dead as a dodo.

A retired CSP now settled in North America shot off an email to another CSP friend in Islamabad critiquing my article. He wrote that I had “surprisingly” missed “the all-out assault” on CSP unleashed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and how “ZAB’s latrine [sic] entry” was made senior through the device of the secretariat group. “This assault led directly to the loss of confidence” resulting in overall deficient administration by the deputy commissioner of a district. “With piplias (CSPs) able to rig the 1977 election, the stage was set for the removal of ZAB and his ultimate unfortunate end,” ended the CSP from North America.

Indeed it is true. I am at fault for not writing how in 1973, the CSP under Prime Minister Bhutto’s directives became defunct. According to a former CSP who was sitting with Bhutto when PTV was calling the 1977 election results, declaring all the PPP biggies from the NWFP, Punjab and Sindh as victors sweeping the polls “unopposed”, the prime minister’s face turned sickly pale. He knew his “loyal” cadre of ex-CSPs had unwittingly vanquished him by getting their minions to stuff the ballot boxes. “Mr Bhutto lost his cool and was furious with the chief secretaries of these provinces for their ‘over kill’,” remembers the CSP. And he paid for it with a hangman’s noose round his neck.

As we all know, after partition, the ICS or the Indian Civil Service converted into CSP and along with PSP (Police Service of Pakistan) was put under the umbrella of All Pakistan Service, while the Central Superior Services (CSS) included the Foreign Service, Finance and other services such as Audit and Accounts, Railway Accounts, Military Accounts, Taxation, and the Customs and Excise Service (remember, Customs because the hot favourite of CSS boys who wanted to get rich overnight). The CSS also consisted of Postal Service, Military Land and Cantonment Service, Central Secretariat Service, and Central Information Service. Each of these services had its own cadre and composition rules, specifying the total cadre strength in terms of its number of positions.

Bhutto brought all of them under one roof and sent them together for their training at the Civil Service Academy in Lahore. Wrong move, cried out the CSPs, but none heard their cries for help until they went dead.

Reminiscing about CSP colleagues and their brides, the email from North America continued: “She (that being me) could have added on the lighter side that most CSPs who married rich lived to rue the day as their wealthier wives had a domineering attitude. Some CSPs who were sensitive men did not marry at all. They felt that they could not keep a wife (of the sort they aspired to) at the low salary income that was their lot in government pay scales. Of course in Ayub Khan’s era, many CSPs were black sheep but then President Ayub himself was not above board in his public and personal dealings.

“The then deputy commissioner (DC) Jhang was slapped by police during Nawab Kalabagh’s days as the superintendent police (SP) Jhang was Governor Kalabagh’s appointee and the poor DC was not on the inside track. This happened at Trimmu headworks while the DC was going to spend a social evening with the Irrigation boss.”

Just hold it there ... what else is new? Up until today, the bureaucrats get badly thrashed up. And they don’t have the guts to stand up in unison to protest. A 50-plus joint secretary responsible for making the budget was bashed up by an MNA, 20 years his junior, from the ruling party. The guy had to go to the hospital to be patched up. Guess what? The matter has been hushed up and the officer left licking his wounds in some corner of the secretariat probably cursing his own luck for the spat. Chaudhry Shujaat of the Pakistan Muslim League is too powerful a man for any bureaucrat to lock horns with.

Let me get back to the CSP’s email from North America. His CSP friend in Islamabad, a retired federal secretary, wrote back: “But more important than the training are the role models our seniors offered. My first three DCs were no good. The first one was very honest but would do anything to please his bosses. The second one was a political animal and would do more politics than the politicians. Governor Kalabagh would ask his advice as to who should become the Muslim League president of the city under his administration. The third one personally visited the site of a public meeting and had it flooded and electrified before Bhutto’s arrival. He was accompanied by the commissioner; the same commissioner who tried to browbeat me into rigging the constituencies of the forthcoming local elections. All the DCs I mention are alive today and I can go on and on about how mediocre they were. We (the CSPs) thought we were superior, but we were not. Some among us may have been great, but then you can find such exceptional people among the proletariat too.”

The above email exchange between the two retired CSP friends, discursively casual, nonetheless shows us the tip of the iceberg which hit the unsinkable CSP vessel and like the great Titanic sank it unceremoniously. Like the Titanic, the CSP saga lies buried on the lightless ocean bed with all its glorious and inglorious feats disintegrating into nothingness.

But wait, some passerby yet may some day decide to go deep sea diving and bring ashore the sunken vessel that has buried within it the secrets of the rise and fall of the CSP. They are waiting to be told but who will be the first to undertake such an odyssey is not for me to wager a guess. Till eternity then ...


[B][COLOR="DarkGreen"]NOTE:[/COLOR][/B] [COLOR="DarkGreen"]Anjum Niaz is not a CSP. She is a Pakistani Journalist living in states.[/COLOR]

Pakistan Wants Professional Bureaucracy - Shaukat Masood Zafar
 

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:
[url]http://www.pakspectator.com/pakistan-wants-professional-bureaucracy/[/url]

CSB promotes 65 officers to BPS-21
 

By: Staff Report | Published: January 01, 2011

ISLAMABAD - The Central Selection Board (CSB) on Friday promoted over 65 bureaucrats from BPS-20 to BPS-21.

The officers included 34 from the District Management Group, 11 each from the Police Service and Secretariat Group and the remaining from the Military Lands and Cantonment Group, Information Service Group, Foreign Service, Audit and Accounts and the Postal Service.

Nasir Durrani of the Police Service and Shabbir Anwar of the Information Group are also among those promoted to BPS-21.

The board met with FPSC Chairman Justice (r) Rana Bhagwandas in the chair.
The CSB is meeting again today (Saturday) to consider the promotions of the remaining 27 officers of BPS-20.

The CSB will also consider the promotion of 70 officers of the Inland Revenue Services, 79 officers of DMG and 20 police officials from to BPS-20.

Source:
[url]http://pakistantoday.com.pk/pakistan-news/National/01-Jan-2011/CSB-promotes-65-officers-to-BPS21[/url]

Stepping up: Scores of officers slated for promotion
 

ISLAMABAD: The Central Selection Board (CSB) on Saturday recommended the promotion of 128 bureaucrats to grade 20.

The secretariat group that serves the federal bureaucracy secured the most promotions to grade 20, trailed by the district management group (DMG) officers.

The board recommended 50 officers of the secretariat group for promotion to grade 20, according to the officials of the Establishment Division. Meanwhile, 32 DMG officers, 30 officers from audits and account group, four officers each from the military land and cantonment group, intelligence bureau and the foreign services and two officers each from the information and postal services were recommended for promotion to grade 20.

The meeting to review the performance of civil servants in a ten-hour long session was chaired by chairman of the Federal Public Services Commission Justice (retd) Rana Bhagwandas at the Cabinet Secretariat.

On Friday, the board had recommended the promotion of 78 government officers to grade 21.

The board recommended the promotion of 34 officers of DMG, 16 from the secretariat group, 12 officers of the police service group, six officers belonging to the audit and accounts group, four from the foreign service, three bureaucrats from the information group and one officer each from railways, postal services and the military land and cantonment group to grade 21. Meanwhile nine police officers were promoted to grade 20 at that meeting.

The summary of names of the officers recommended for promotion will be forwarded to Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani within a few days, said secretary Cabinet Division Chaudhry Rauf while talking to The Express Tribune.

However, some bureaucrats’ promotion was deferred due to litigation issues and shortage of time. The chairman assured the members that another meeting would be convened soon to address this.

The board met after nearly a year, mainly because of legal hitches. Now that the ordinance concerning the law for civil servants has lapsed, the FPSC chairman is empowered to head the board, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The board members appreciated Justice (retd) Bhagwandas for his thoroughness and familiarity with the officers’ career records, sources said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2nd, 2011.

Source:
[url]http://tribune.com.pk/story/98038/stepping-up-scores-of-officers-slated-for-promotion/[/url]

Aik Filmi Police Officer Ki Kahani - Rauf Klasra
 

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Post-devolution corruption in Sindh
 

To date, the nazims have been criticised immensely by all quarters for financial corruption. However, I would like to draw the attention of your worthy readers to the post-devolution corruption taking place at taluka level in Sindh.

When the local government elections were postponed in Sindh last year, administrators were appointed to exercise the powers of zila, taluka and Union Nazims.

Consequently, the political setup formed a lot of space for itself to suck out the funds of local bodies through their corrupt cronies.

At the district level, the concerned DCOs were appointed as administrators but at the taluka level, no uniform rule was established. Instead the three major parties, PPP, MQM and PML (F), distributed the seats of taluka nazims among themselves keeping in view the political affiliation of the taluka nazim concerned.

The first blow was struck by secretary Local Government Department who, in fact, is a school teacher but made provincial secretary. He telephoned all the TMOs of Sindh to bring Rs700,000 each and receive orders of their appointment as taluka administrators.

The MNAs and MPAs of the three major parties have distributed seats among themselves. Any ambitious person may pay the concerned MNA/MPA and get charge of taluka administrator.

It may be noted that the TMAs allegedly receive millions of rupees every month as a result of the OZT (Octroi Zila Tax) and other funds from the Local Government Department every month.

The moment the funds are received, they are distributed among the MNAs and some portion taken away by the administrators.

The strange aspect of the whole phenomenon is that nowhere in the whole province of Sindh will one see a single young DMG officer as taluka administrator.

If the DDO-R is a ranker, he is administrator and if DDO-R is of DMG, then the TMOs are appointed as administrator. The worst sufferers are the common people. Sindh is undergoing worst problems of clean drinking water, drainage and solid waste disposal. How can TMAs work well when administrators are especially sent to suck out all its funds?

The media, which is playing a very positive role, is also responsible for negligence. It has never highlighted the huge corruption taking place due to political appointment in TMAs.

The best solution is to form a uniform rule for all talukas; either DD0-Rs be appointed as administrators or the TMOs. Powers of appointment of administrators should be taken away from MNAs/MPAs if we want to stop corruption and solve the problems of the people.

A CIVIL SERVANT
Karachi

Source:
[url]http://www.dawn.com/index.php?action=go&continue=/2011/01/16/post-devolution-corruption-in-sindh.html&code=3301523817&seed=352909[/url]

A Discussion with Dr. Amjad Saqib, Executive Director, Akhuwat
 

[B]Background:[/B] The context for this discussion is preparation for a consultation on faith and development in South and Central Asia in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on January 10-11, 2011. The consultation is an endeavor of the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, with support from the Henry R. Luce Foundation. Its aim is to take stock of the wide range of ongoing work by different organizations that are, in varying ways, inspired by religious faith, but more important, to explore the policy implications that emerge from their interactions with development organizations. The interview was conducted by telephone between Michael Bodakowski and Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib.

Dr. Saqib is Executive Director of Akhuwat. In this interview he reflects on his role as the founder and director of an interest free microfinance institution. He talks about how his organization functions on a technical as well as a social level. He discusses his engagement with religious institutions and leaders, and how this helps him to earn the trust of the communities he works in, as well as to ensure the sustainability of his organization. Dr. Saqib argues that faith is an intrinsic part of development, and that to leave out faith is excluding large parts of the population. He urges international development actors to increase their engagement with religious leaders to be able to reach the most marginalized. He concludes with observations about education in Pakistan and identifies common ground between faith-based and other development actors.

[B]Tell us about your personal story and path, and how you arrived to do the work you are doing today?[/B]

Many years ago, when I was in the civil service of Pakistan, I got an opportunity to work for a poverty alleviation program. It was there that I learned much about microfinance. During my stint in this program, besides many other experiences, I also made two interesting observations. The first was that people were reluctant to take loans with built-in interest as it is forbidden in the religion. Let me add here that every religion in the world is against usury or charging interest on loans. Though people did not like interest-based lending, yet they had no other option and hence, they had to participate in this form of borrowing.

The second observation that disturbed me immensely was the exorbitantly high rates of interest that were being charged from the poor. If a rich person wanted to buy a luxury item like BMW or a Mercedes, he could get a loan at 12 percent or perhaps 15 percent. However, if a poor person needed a loan, it was more than likely that he would be given that at 30 to 40 percent rate of interest. Even from a secular point of view, this becomes a question of gross inequity. We have slogans all over the country that suggest that we should help the poor and yet, we are charging a 30 to 40 percent interest rate on loans and making the poor even poorer. These two observations prompted me to find a solution to the issue of high interest on small loans and also encouraged me to critically examine the social, moral, and cultural values of society that allow such forms of usury.

On one particular day, a very poor woman came to me. She said she was a widow and if she was given a loan for Rs. 10,000 (which is about $150), she would be able to keep her livelihood; however, she insisted that the loan should be interest free. So, I requested a friend of mine for support. Together we generated a pool of money and were able to loan her the money on those terms. She was so touched by this gesture that she worked even harder. She made good use of the funds and in a span of mere six months she was able to improve the lives of her children and other members of her family. She was able to marry one of her daughters. She also repaid the borrowed amount. That was the beginning of this organization, which was named Akhuwat.

[B]Please tell us more about Akhuwat. [/B]

After the delivery of the first loan, we created a pool of money through donations from known philanthropists, friends, and well-to-do people. That pool of money was our capital which, thankfully, came to us free of cost. We started to distribute that money to the poor without any loan fees and without charging interest. Our initial loan was Rs. 10,000, and I am proud to tell you that by December 2010 we had loaned close to Rs. 1 billion. Our current pool of money that is around Rs. 250 million is like a revolving fund. We loan money to the poor, we recover our loan, and then we loan out the money again to another person in need. Through circulating this amount of money amongst the poor, we have been able to generate loans near to Rs. 1 billion. Our recovery rate, at 99.7%, is astonishingly high and speaks of the fact that the poor are trustworthy people.

The entire program is founded on the concept of “Akhuwat,” which in Arabic means brotherhood. We borrowed this concept from the tradition of the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said that the best way to end poverty is not through charity but through sacrifice and adoption. He suggested that a wealthy person should adopt a poor person and help that person. To be more precise, a wealthy person should enter into a relationship of brotherhood with a poor person and then help that person through a bond of association instead of giving dissociated charity.

This is the notion of brotherhood that links a wealthy person to an underprivileged person and it is derived from the teaching of the Qur’an. This is the philosophy behind our organization. We believe that poverty cannot be eliminated through charity; in fact, it requires a bond of brotherhood between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Let me explain through an example. The total population of the world at present stands at six billion. Two billion of these are below poverty line. If the top two billion who are not poor adopt the bottom two billion who are poor, i.e. one person adopting only one, then the bottom two billion may be lifted from the quagmire of poverty. It looks very idealistic but it is simple. Akhuwat’s four guiding principles are derived from this one basic concept.

The first principle of our organization is that we do not charge interest on our loans. Interest is forbidden in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and all major religions of the world, and we think that interest is one of the basic reasons for poverty and exploitation of the poor. After we decided not to charge any interest, we suddenly ran into the problem of sustainability. If we are not charging interest, how are we going to cover operational expenses? We brainstormed solutions and finally got an idea. The idea was that we could work at local religious centers such as mosques and churches and link our offices to these instead of having an office in an expensive building. That way, we could be in touch with people and the local imams and priests that are providing services to the people of Allah. This would also enable us to be in touch with the community and not only help raise funds but also help identify people in need and distress.

This innovation developed into the second principle that guides our organization, i.e. we operate from local religious centers. We researched the history of religious institutions and found that they had been centers of community participation in the past. They provided services to the poor and were the platform for community action. In the city of Lahore there are more than 17,000 mosques and a good number of churches and unfortunately these are all underutilized, only used during prayer time. During other periods of time they are mostly empty. So we linked our office with a mosque and started doing most of our activities in the mosque. We received immediate support and trust of the community and were able to also reduce our operating costs.

The third principle integral to our organization is volunteerism. A civil society organization is different from a private sector organization because it has in-built volunteerism. If any civil society organization is devoid of the volunteer spirit, it runs the risk of becoming a business. In Akhuwat, we expect people to give their time and their abilities; the spirit of the entire organization is based on volunteerism. This is also derived from our faith, in which the principle of volunteerism is the most important part of every tradition. Every prophet is a volunteer, right from Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him. The Prophets always looked beyond themselves to help the community socially, morally, economically, and politically. We wanted to follow the footsteps of these great prophets and adopt their methods of bringing change to the community through participation.

The fourth principle for our organization is that we do not want to make people dependent. We want the people who borrow from us to stand on their own feet and one day become donors themselves for others in need. We are not charging any interest or profit, but we are supporting people and hopefully instilling a value to help others after their own needs are fulfilled.

All religions place emphasis on charity and also teach that charity is not confined to the wealthy members of society; everyone is responsible to give, based on his or her resources. We believe that society flourishes, progresses, and develops only when there are more givers than takers. For the long-term sustainable development of a society, we have to create a critical mass of people who are willing to give to the poor and needy instead of taking.

In Pakistan 50 percent of the people are poor and the other 50 percent are not poor. If the 50 percent that are wealthy stand in solidarity with the 50 percent that are poor they could improve social conditions for everyone. You may consider this an idealistic vision of the world but we have tried, tested, and achieved it. We have been able to reach over 80,000 families, and we still continue to progress and grow.

I believe these four principles are relevant not only in Pakistan but in any society. Whether a person is secular or follows a religion, these principles are important and appealing to all. However, for us at Akhuwat, these principles are linked to the faith. We promote this spirit of brotherhood as taught by the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, to alleviate poverty. It is not charity but rather adopting a family and helping it improve its life through sharing instead of charity. We organize all of our programs around this central tenet. Though the inspiration is derived from the Islamic concept of brotherhood, the message is for all humankind. We do not discriminate on the basis of religion, race, caste, creed, tribe, or gender. We are trying to support the people irrespective of any divide or affiliation.

[B]What does development mean for Akhuwat?[/B]

We believe deeply in participatory development. We believe in inclusive development. In a religion-centered country like Pakistan, if you do not involve the religious people – including the mosques and the imams – then a large part of the population and society remains excluded. Religion is also pro-development. Any development model that excludes religious people, places, and spaces is insufficient to cater to the needs of entire population. If we want to include the poor living in rural areas and slums in the development process, then we will have to involve faith, religious actors, and religious places. We thus decided to bring religious institutions to the development forefront and make them partners in the development process.

This is our understanding of an inclusive and participatory development model. It also needs mentioning that there is no religious, gender, or age discrimination in our organization. For example, Christians come to the mosque and Muslims go to the church as well. This has promoted interfaith harmony; for the first time Christians are welcomed in mosques. Women are facilitated to come to the mosques freely. In this way we have been able to help different social and religious communities bind together to respond to common concerns, issues, and challenges. I would like to reiterate that religion should not be excluded from the development paradigm. Development is not just an economic change; it is social, moral, and political. Religion primarily focuses on social and moral development of the individual, which it aims to attain through leading by example, equity, compassion, provision, securing of human rights, and equitable distribution of economic resources. Development process in a society therefore needs to involve indigenous institutions and faith.

[B]Can you expand on how Akhuwat gets funds for its operational costs and guarantees repayment of its loans? [/B]

We have our offices that are linked to a church or a mosque. Some of our activities take place in the mosque or the church and some of them take place in the office. This is how we keep our operational costs low. The conventional microfinance organizations spend about 30 percent of the disbursed amount for operations. We have reduced our cost to 10 percent of the disbursed amount. This is one third of the operating cost of a traditional microfinance organization.

It is interesting to note that around sixty percent of our costs are met by donations from our borrowers. We inspire them to donate as much as they want in return for the interest free loan. Without any compulsion or coercion, they are giving donations to meet operational costs; this makes us 60 percent self-sufficient. The way the program is progressing, we believe that in few years, the entire operational cost will be matched by donations given by the borrowers, and we will be operationally self-sufficient.

Akhuwat is gradually becoming a cooperative movement. There is no other organization where the beneficiaries are the donors as well. There is a tremendous amount of willingness among the borrowers to become donors of this program. They are committed to making it better, through supporting the program and ensuring that it is sustainable. Akhuwat is providing them services that are aligned to their faith. This has cultivated their ownership, and “ownership” is critical for the success of a development program. This voluntary donation is also indicative of the fact that they are coming out of poverty. It proves the success of interest-free credit methodology.

[B]What is the nature of Akhuwat’s relationship with local churches and mosques? How are local faith communities and religious leaders directly involved in community development activities? [/B]

Initially there was some resistance from the religious leaders, and some of the imams did not understand our vision. Religious leaders, as we have noted, are generally excluded from mainstream development. They thought we were encroaching on their domain; they did not trust us and they thought we had a hidden agenda. They did not think that we could bridge these two worlds, the economic and the spiritual; they doubted our intentions. We tried to explain that religious places are also meant for the social welfare of human beings, and we gave examples from Islamic history and reminded them that the mosque was once used to be the seat of governance. It was always a part of the development process; we did not want to take control of the mosque, but we were trying to utilize the institution to help the community and promote peace and equity. Once they understood, they responded positively. They also realized that when we give loans through the office of the mosque, the social status of the imam is raised and he feels empowered. The entire process is about engaging and empowerment. Through our program, we have tried to take the mosque out of seclusion and brought it into the development mainstream.

It was a difficult path and we struggled, but we have managed to make progress. Now as a routine matter we also involve the mosque to implement a social agenda. We teach the people about the importance of educating women, about human rights, environmental pollution, education and health issues, etc. On the one hand it is about loans, entrepreneurial training and capacity building, and on the other hand it is about social development and guidance to enable the community to progress. We have found a thriving institution where many players can pursue common objectives in a fully transparent and participative manner.

[B]You mentioned that religious leaders are excluded from mainstream development. Why is this so and what are the main tensions? How can secular organizations better work to bridge this gap and overcome these tensions? [/B]

It is extremely important in a society like Pakistan, which has a huge faith focus, that people realize that you cannot have development without involving faith-based institutions. Engaging the faith leaders is the most important thing to do for the uplifting of the community; however, it is only possible through dialogue and mutual understanding and frequent interaction. The religious leaders live in a domain of their own. They mostly do not trust the outside world. The non-religious people and the secular agencies also stay aloof and do not try to pursue a productive dialogue with the religious leadership. How will the much needed harmony in the society be achieved?

There are thousands of madrasas and each one has a mosque attached to it. We need to enhance the options available to these students and try to bring them into mainstream society. We need to engage the madrasa leaders and the students so that they are aware of the options that are open to them. Without working with them, we cannot involve or engage them in development activities. As I said, when I first went to the religious leaders and told them about the program they were distrustful; over time, our relationship has changed and developed into mutual trust and accommodation.

Poverty in fact is poverty of opportunity. We told the religious leaders that the purpose of our program was to give poor people opportunity to access loans or financial resources so that they could improve their lives. We also told them that we are giving people loans according to the tenets of Islamic faith, and this is also in accordance with the teaching of all religions. We are not charging interest and yet, we are managing to give the poor people access to resources and opening doors to development.

Let me give you an example from Bangladesh. Similar to Pakistan, faith is an integral part of the Bangladeshi culture. The country became successful in the implementation of its population control programs when it engaged the faith leaders. Faith proved to be a key success factor. The religious leaders are not against development, but we need to engage them like other stakeholders, so that they understand the process and can be included in it.

This is not an easy task. There are many barriers. Religious leaders are often not as well educated in development disciplines. Sometimes they do not speak the language the people in development organizations speak. So inclusion here entails a different strategy; we engage them in creative ways so that we can talk about education, microfinance, women’s empowerment, and social and economic development in general.

This inclusion is the only way to fight against illiteracy, ignorance, discrimination, extremism, and terrorism. Religion is a positive force. It does not teach war, violence, or terrorism, and it certainly does not take away the liberties of women and the poor. All religions came to rescue the disadvantaged. If you see the history of Islam, you will see that the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, stood for social justice. He stood for empowerment of these who were extremely disadvantaged and marginalized. Religion is the pinnacle of moral values and should work in communion with development organizations to eliminate injustice, war, hatred, and violence.

[B]How would you advise secular organizations to engage religious leaders on a practical level?
[/B]
The best way to bring these issues to the forefront is to present this alternate paradigm and communicate it to the world. We should organize workshops, seminars, and conferences; write case-studies and publish books; and then bring people to a common platform where we can discuss, dialogue, and deliberate together. We need to create a critical mass of people who are willing to see development in the faith perspective. Once we do this, we should be able to tell the world that these two factions of society are willing to work together to alleviate the poverty of the two billion poor people in the world. There is no room for skepticism and mistrust. Religious leadership needs to be told that being secular does not mean being anti-religion.

Promoting faith-inspired organizations that are helping the poor and introducing them to the international development community is important. We need to promote those organizations that are not restricting services to their own faith or those that do not have a hidden agenda. For example, there are missionary or church-based organizations in Pakistan, and I am happy to see that these organizations are highly respected and well regarded. They do not serve their own community only. They serve the entire Pakistani community. If we promote such organizations we can build the bridges and set examples.

[B]I saw that Akhuwat grants loans for education. What are the education challenges facing Pakistan, and how have you faced them? [/B]

Education in Pakistan is riddled with neglect and confusion. There are three systems of education that are operating in the country. There are English medium schools for the privileged and the rich. Then there are government schools where the language of instruction is Urdu and where the poor people send their children to get education. Naturally, these students are unable to compete with the graduates from the English schools. The third system is the madrasa system where the children of the poorest of the poor attend school. These schools appeal to the poor families because they provide food for the children, and parents are relieved from the stress of feeding a child two meals a day. There is also the added benefit that the child is receiving a religious education.

Those who emerge from these three streams do not have a fair understanding of the others. They live in different worlds. They have different aspirations, different dreams. So, how does one go about trying to make three types of people converge together? How can you make these three sections of society into a one cohesive nation? This is the challenge that is facing the Pakistani education system. We need to bring these three systems closer to each other. Obviously it cannot be done in one day. But the state, international community, and NGOs should try to encourage reform in madrasa education. The government schools and English medium schools need reform too. The curriculum is outdated, teachers lack capacity and motivation, and there is a scarcity of teaching and learning materials. The goal should be to develop a single system of education so that every Pakistani child should have the access to reach his/her full potential through education. No doubt it will be an arduous and painful process because change is always painful. It will also take a long time as injustices bred over centuries cannot be removed in a short span of time.

We should encourage students from the private elite institutions to visit the government schools and the madrasas and vice-versa so that they become aware that there is also a world beyond their own world. Students from each system who are confined to their spheres must be made aware of each other. We need to form relationships between the students and teachers and the parents of these students so that we may bridge this gap. We also need support and commitment from political leadership to bring about reform to make a single inclusive education system. It would require tremendous resources, both human and financial. It will also need persistence and perseverance. This is the real challenge.

[B]What are the primary gender challenges today in Pakistan? What are the faith dimensions of those challenges? How does Akhuwat work to address gender inequities? [/B]

In our lending program, 33 percent of the loans go to women. We have never refused a loan application on the basis of gender. We are gender sensitive in terms of employees, donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries. We believe that men and women both should be able to have access to the services we offer, and we derive this value from faith. Islam does define roles for both genders, but it does not discriminate on the basis of gender. However, gender discrimination in Pakistani society cannot be denied, especially in the rural areas. This has, however, nothing to do with religion; it is an evil rooted in our tribal and feudal culture.

For example, Islam prescribes clear rules about inheritance. But in the villages women are unable to get their share in the inheritance and other benefits because of the gender limitations that are related to tribal culture. In rural society it is very difficult for a woman to obtain divorce, yet in the Islamic faith, there are rules safeguarding women’s right to divorce. Women in rural areas are marginalized and discriminated against despite the fact that this is contrary to religious teachings. Islam says that education is the right of every person, male and female without discrimination; however, in feudal societies like ours, the women are not allowed to get education. The feudal tradition is communicated to the women usually through religious leaders, and feudal cultural restrictions are thus misinterpreted as religious restrictions. We have to see it in the right perspective. Religion does not take rights away from women; the basis of gender discrimination in Pakistan hinges on tribal tradition.

[B]How did faith-inspired organizations respond to recent humanitarian crises in Pakistan, including internal displacement due to conflict, and the recent flooding in the country? [/B]

We have been victims of great crises in the past few years. Yet we have emerged stronger. You will appreciate how resilient our society is and how well we are adjusting to these challenges. The major support for the downtrodden and the victims of the flood and the earthquake has come from faith. People in Pakistan help their brothers and sisters because they are inspired by faith, whether they are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, or Hindus. The role of faith-based organizations, though, was limited, yet the inspiration mostly came from faith.

Looking specifically at the Pakistani context, faith, in varying forms and manifestations, plays a large role in most segments of society, and provides inspiration to many working for social good. That said, do you see a clear distinction between organizations inspired by faith, and those that are outwardly secular in name, or is a more nuanced understanding necessary? I have heard comments suggesting the latter.

The end goal of each organization is the same. Faith-inspired organizations and secular organizations both intend to bring development to the people; in terms of objectives there is very little difference. The difference is in operational methodology. Faith-inspired organizations try to engage religious ideals, religious leaders, religious teachings, and ethics. Religious tradition is their legacy and reward hereafter is their motivation. Whereas the secular organizations leave out the religion and religious institutions, and therefore they, despite their best intentions, fail to engage a large majority of the society. To some extent both are limiting their scope. This is not inclusive development. This is against the principles of participation. We need to transcend prejudices and rise above personal likes and dislikes. Embracing adversaries is the real spirit of religion. Forgiveness and friendship is the hallmark of true faith.

As I said, I do believe that the ultimate goal of each organization, whether faith-inspired or secular, is the same, that is, to bring development to the poor. The need here is to bridge the gap and build alliances. The problems of the poor are multidimensional. These problems can only be solved through creative and concerted efforts. I know many people who work on both sides of this divide. To me, this divide is arbitrary and artificial. I firmly believe in the innate goodness of people. We all want to eliminate poverty and build a society that provides equal opportunities to the rich and the poor. Our world is already suffering from too many divides; let’s see development as a joint endeavor of the people, by the people and for the people. Let’s not succumb to another division – let’s make this world a happy place to live in.


Source:
[url]http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/interviews/a-discussion-with-dr-amjad-saqib-executive-director-akhuwat[/url]

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[B]Profile of Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib[/B]
Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib, Executive Director at Akhuwat, graduated from King Edward Medical College Lahore and completed Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) and Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at American University. He joined the civil service of Pakistan (DMG) in 1985, and retired in 2003. Since then, besides rendering philanthropic and social services, he has been providing consultancy services to Asian Development Bank, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, World Bank, and Canadian International Development Agency. His areas of expertise include poverty alleviation, microfinance, social mobilization and education management. He is author of four books and is a columnist in Pakistan. Dr. Saqib is founder of Akhuwat, the first ever interest free microfinance program in Pakistan, which operates from mosques and churches.

‘Khosa committee decisions yet to be implemented’
 

By Babar Dogar

LAHORE

THE District Management Group (DMG) is out to circumvent decisions taken by the Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa Committee constituted by the Punjab chief minister in July 2010 for solution of problems of provincial officers.

Addressing a gathering of provincial officers outside the office of the Services Secretary in Civil Secretariat here, PCS, PSS & PMS Officers Welfare Association President Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir said despite a lapse of more than six months, decisions taken by the committee were yet to be implemented and few decisions, which were being implemented, were totally against the agreement reached in a meeting and endorsed by the committee. The DMG officers while preparing a summary for the chief minister misrepresented the facts and got approved minutes from the chief minister, which were against the decisions taken by the committee, he charged.

He said the gathering of more than 60 provincial officers just on information of his visit to the Secretariat indicated a deep sense of resentment was again permeating the provincial officers after this act of the District Management Group.

Rai Manzoor Nasir said that every effort was being made by the DMG officers to block the promotion of provincial officers to higher grades. Even under the disputed seat sharing formula of 1993, 300 posts of provincial services’ share in grade 18; 60 in grade 19; 34 in grade 20 and seven in grade 21 were lying vacant. The provincial officers were being denied promotion deliberately. He narrated the example of DCO Jehlum Hamed Ullah Khan, who retired on 31st December, 2010 in grade 20 despite the availability of seven posts in grade 21 and the Provincial Selection Board in its meeting held on 30th December did not have the compassion to consider him for promotion.

He lamented that DMG was allowed to hold the provincial services under subjugation only in the province of Punjab. In other provinces, the provincial officers had been given their rights. In other provinces, no post of provincial share remains vacant even for one day. In Punjab, the provincial officers were victims of worst exploitation; they had to serve as long as 15 to 21 years in grade 17 alone while DMG officers were promoted to grade 18 just after five years. Senior provincial officers were posted under junior DMG officers and provincial officers posted on non-significant posts. Out of 42 administrative secretaries, only three were from provincial service, he added.

He further said that every action of DMG was aimed at depriving the provincial officers of their legitimate rights and malafide tactics were being used by them for this. Training had been made mandatory for promotion of provincial officers; however, holding of training had been left to the sweet will of DMG. Secretary MPDD never concealed her bias against provincial services and she had publicly declared that she would not allow training for 1992 batch of PCS.

He said that it was decided by Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa Committee that timely training would be given to the provincial officers. If training could not be given in time, the condition of mandatory training would stand waived. Unfortunately none of the decisions were implemented by DMG-dominated S&GAD resulting in gradual disappearance of the provincial officers in higher grades.

Another decision taken by the Committee was that discriminatory condition of Minimum Service Length would be abolished. However, S&GAD abolished the condition for all the services except the PCS, PSS and PMS as no amendment was made in Provincial Management Service Rules 2004.

He further said that it was decided by the Committee that DMG officers, who had been posted out of Punjab would retain official residences only for one year. Despite clear-cut decision to this effect, the DMG officers sent a wrong summary to the chief minister and changed the time period from one year to two years and thus misled the chief minister.

He said that even the two-year decision was not being implemented and the officers, who had been posted out of Punjab as long as seven years ago were still occupying the official residences in GOR. Not even a single notice was issued to these illegal occupants. He said that the DMG officers moving summary to the chief minister added certain things from their own side favouring DMG officers and added that the DMG officers could retain residences in Punjab until they were provided with a residence at their new place of posting in other province. This, he said, was quite illogical as provision of residence was the responsibility of federal government or the province where these DMG officers were transferred. By occupying the Punjab residences they are usurping the rights of the provincial officers.

Doors of Punjab Civil Officers Mess were still closed for the provincial officers; whereas, even such federal services as postal, income tax, audit could become members. He said that the provincial officers were being driven against the wall.

Source:
[url]http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=24283&Cat=5&dt=1/7/2011[/url]

Punjab govt’s reforms agenda 4 posts of EDOs, 67 of police to go
 

[B]Punjab govt’s reforms agenda 4 posts of EDOs, 67 of police to go[/B]

LAHORE, Jan 21: A cabinet committee headed by Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa on Friday approved abolition of ‘unnecessary’ 67 senior posts in the police department and four of the EDOs in each district government.

The proposals are a part of the reforms agenda of the provincial government and their approval by the cabinet committee is being considered a major step towards winding up the administrative system introduced by the Musharraf regime in the name of devolution of power.

Sources said the committee comprising Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan, Irrigation Minister Raja Riaz and Finance Minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira also approved downgrading the posts of divisional commissioners and DCOs of five city district governments in Punjab.

The recommendations of the committee are being sent to the chief minister for his early approval. The final phase of giving legal cover to the reforms would be started after the chief minister’s approval, sources said.

They said the committee approved abolition of all “redundant” posts of additional IGs, DIGs, SSPs and SDPOs in the police department.

The police department had become too heavy under the Musharraf government’s Police Order, increasing alone the number of additional IGs from the previous two to 13.

A senior police official said the department had itself suggested reduction in the posts to help the government save money without affecting its operational side.

The police posts which are being abolished include Additional IGs Vigilance, Research and Development, and Operations. There are four posts of DIGs, including Director Sports and DIGs Administration, in Multan and two other cities.

One post of SSP and 59 posts of SDPOs where DSPs and ASPs belonging to the Police Service of Pakistan are posted, are also included in the downsizing list.

The committee approved abolition of the posts of EDOs Information Technology, Law, Literacy and most importantly Revenue in the district governments.

It may be mentioned here that the post of EDO Revenue was created under the Local Government Ordinance 2001, giving it the revenue powers of the post of divisional commissioner that was then abolished.

Sources said the government was also considering to withdraw the revenue powers of the district governments given to them again under the Local Government Ordinance 2001. And in view of the EDO Revenue post abolition, the Board of Revenue has been asked to prepare proposals regarding the new revenue administrative set-up, and suggest amendments in the related laws accordingly.

They said it would also be required to amend the Local Government Ordinance 2001 to give legal cover to the abolition of the post of EDO Revenue, and the authorities concerned had been asked to start the homework.

They said the committee approved reduction of the one each posts of members general and judicial of the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team. It also agreed to abolish another CMIT general post and instead allowed it to have one more member engineering.

Similarly, the committee approved abolition of one each post of planning and development member and joint chief economist.

The committee approved downgrading the posts of commissioners of divisions not having city district governments from BS-21 to BS-20. The posts of commissioners of divisions having city district governments would continue to be in BS-21.

According to an earlier proposal, all seats of divisional commissioners were to be downgraded from the existing BS-21 to BS-20.

The committee approved downgrading the posts of all DCOs of the five city district governments of Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi from the existing BS-21 to BS-20. At present, junior officers are holding a number of BS-20 and BS-21 posts of DCOs, indicating that personal choice and not merit is the rule of the game in Punjab.

Source:
[url]http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/22/punjab-govts-reforms-agenda-4-posts-of-edos-67-of-police-to-go.html[/url]

[URL="http://www.cssforum.com.pk/general/news-articles/articles/17974-pakistan-women-diplomats-shine-europe.html"]Default Pakistan Women Diplomats Shine in Europe [/URL]


[B]A collection of Roedad Khan's articles[/B] > [url]http://www.pkcolumns.com/category/english-columnists/roedad-khan/[/url]

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[B][SIZE=5]صرف اور صرف پاکستان[/SIZE][/B]

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جشن آزادی کے حوالے سے گوجرانوالہ میں ڈی آئی جی ذوالفقار چیمہ نے ایک منفرد ترین تقریب کی۔ اس مہینے میں پورا ملک ایک خاص جذبے سے سرشار ہوتا ہے۔ سب سے شاندار سرگرمی نظریہ پاکستان ٹرسٹ کے زیر اہتمام ہوتی ہے۔ لگتا ہے کہ صرف یہی ادارہ ہی پاکستان اور نظریہ پاکستان کا ترجمان اور نگہبان ہے۔ یہاں ہر تقریب پاکستان کے حوالے سے ہوتی ہے۔ ہر روز یہاں 14 اگست کا سماں ہوتا ہے۔ پاکستان ایسا ملک ہے جو روز بنتا ہے۔ جناب مجید نظامی کی سرپرستی میں نظریہ پاکستان ٹرسٹ ایک تحریک کی شکل اختیار کر گیا ہے۔ پاکستان میں تحریک پاکستان کی خوشبو بکھرتی رہتی ہے۔

ذوالفقار چیمہ نے گوجرانوالہ کو قائداعظم کا شہر بنا دیا ہے۔ ابھی 14 اگست میں کچھ دن رہتے ہیں کہ پولیس والوں نے سڑکوں پر سبز ہلالی پرچم لہراتے ہوئے موٹرسائیکلوں پر مارچ شروع کر دیا ہے۔ یہ منظر بہت شاندار تھا۔ اس سے سارا شہر خوبصورت لگ رہا تھا۔ پولیس والے پاکستان زندہ باد کی زندہ تصویر کی طرح تھے۔ چیمہ صاحب پورے شہر کی محبوب ترین شخصیت ہیں۔ اس شخص نے موقعہ دیا ہے کہ ہم پولیس والوں کی تعریف کر سکیں۔ پولیس کے لئے لوگوں کا تاثر کچھ اچھا نہیں مگر چیمہ صاحب نے اس ادارے کا کردار ہی تبدیل کر دیا ہے۔ وہ اب تک دو دفعہ پہلے بھی یہ تقریب کر چکے ہیں جس میں لوگوں کا لوٹا ہوا مال واپس کیا جا سکتا ہے۔ مجھے آج معلوم ہوا کہ ایسے بھی ہوتا ہے۔ اس معاملے کو کھلے عام لوگوں کے سامنے ایک جلسہ عام میں کرنا بہت حیرت انگیز واقعہ ہے پھر اس واقعے کو جشن آزادی کے ساتھ جوڑ دینا بھی ایک خوشگوار حیرت کا باعث ہے۔

تقریب میں سٹیج پر بیٹھے ہوئے خوبصورت نوجوان ملک ظہیر سے ملاقات ہوئی۔ وہ چیمہ صاحب کو بہت محبوب رکھتا ہے۔ چیمبر آف کامرس اینڈ انڈسٹری کا قائم مقام صدر ہے۔ دل میں آیا کہ ایسے نوجوان قائداعظم کے پاکستان کے شہروں کی نمائندگی کریں۔ وہ شہباز شریف کا دیوانہ ہے۔ اسے مسلم لیگ ن کی طرف سے ٹکٹ ملے تو وہ مقبولیت کے نئے ریکارڈ بنائے گا۔ اس تقریب میں سچے پاکستانیوں کی موجودگی عجب آسودگی کا باعث تھی۔ گوجرانوالہ کا فاروق عالم انصاری قومی سطح کا کالم نگار ہے وہ حاضرین میں بیٹھے تھے مگر چیمہ صاحب نے انہیں بلاکر لوٹی ہوئی رقم اصل مالکوں کو دلوائی۔ اس نے بتایا کہ بتایا کہ آج سے کئی برس پہلے میرے مرحوم والد کی موجودگی میں گھر سے دس بارہ لاکھ کا ڈاکہ پڑا تھا آج تک ایک پیسہ نہیں ملا۔ ممکن ہے کہ چیمہ صاحب اس معاملے میں بھی کوئی معرکہ آرائی کر دکھائیں۔ سٹیج پر موجود ن لیگ کی باقاعدہ منتخب ایم پی اے شاذیہ اشفاق کہہ رہی تھی کہ شہر کے کسی آدمی کو تکلیف پہنچے تو وہ چیمہ صاحب تک پہنچنا چاہتا ہے جیسے ان سے ملاقات کے بعد ساری تکلیفیں دور ہو جائیں گی اور تکلیفیں دور ہو بھی رہی ہیں۔ پولیس کے محکمے میں ایسے لوگ غنیمت ہیں۔ ورنہ لوگ پولیس میں ’’مال غنیمت‘‘ اکٹھا کرنے کیلئے آتے ہیں۔ ہم چیمہ صاحب کے شکرگزار ہیں کہ انہوں نے پولیس کی تعریف کرنے کا موقعہ دیا۔ یہاں لوگوں نے پولیس کی گاڑیوں پر پھول نچھاور کئے۔ اب لوگوں نے سوچنا شروع کر دیا ہے کہ پولیس والے چاہیں تو وہ ان سے محبت کرنے لگیں گے۔

ذوالفقار چیمہ کے بڑے بھائی جسٹس (ر) افتخار چیمہ ایم این اے ہیں ان کی تعریف چیف جسٹس افتخار محمد چودھری نے بھی کی ہے۔ ڈاکٹر نثار چیمہ ای ڈی او ہیلتھ ہیں۔ وہ مریض کے بھیس میں مریضوں کے حالات معلوم کرتے رہتے ہیں اور خلق خدا کی دعائیں لیتے ہیں۔ اچھا شخص جہاں ہو گا وہ بھلائی کی بات کرے گا۔ گوجرانوالہ مسلم لیگ ن کا شہر ہے مگر وہ دو دھڑوں میں بری طرح الجھا ہوا ہے۔ ایسے میں یہاں چیمہ برادرز بھی نہ ہوتے تو کیا ہوتا۔
یہاں پوزیشن لینے والے بچوں کی پذیرائی کی گئی۔ یہ پولیس والوں کا کام نہیں مگر چیمہ صاحب پاکستان کی محبت میں بے قرار ہیں۔ پولیس کے جوانوں اور افسروں کو بہترین کارکردگی پر انعام دیئے گئے۔ ایس پی اویس صاحب کو ایک لاکھ روپیہ ملا۔ علی محسن اور اطہر وحید بھی اچھے پولیس افسر ہیں۔

12 اگست کو مجھے بلایا گیا کہ جشن آزادی کے حوالے سے ایک تقریب ہے۔ یہاں سب سے پہلے ذوالفقار چیمہ نے تقریر کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ آج سوا تین کروڑ روپے ان لوگوں کو پیش کئے جائیں گے جن کے گھروں میں چوری ہوئی اور جن سے مال و دولت ڈاکو چھین کر لے گئے۔ وہ سب لوگ سٹیج پر آئے اور اپنے پیسے وصول کرتے رہے جیسے انہیں انعام دیا جا رہا ہو۔ میں نے ایک بوڑھے آدمی کو آٹھ لاکھ روپے دیئے تو وہ اتنا ممنون ہوا جیسے میں نے اپنی جیب سے یہ خطیر رقم اسے عنایت کی ہو۔ ورنہ چوری ڈاکے کی رقم کب واپسی ملتی ہے۔ میری بہن کا پرس اچھرہ بازار میں غائب ہو گیا جس میں کل 30 ہزار روپے تھے۔ اس وقت کے ڈی آئی جی طارق سلیم ڈوگر کے ساتھ تعلق کے باوجود ایک پیسہ واپس نہیں ملا۔ میں نے چیمہ صاحب سے کہا کہ میری بھی ایک چیز پچھلے ساٹھ برسوں سے گم ہو گئی ہے۔ وہ مجھے واپس دلوا دیں۔ وہ ہے آزادی اور آزادی کی آرزو۔ یہ گمشدہ آزادی چیمہ صاحب کی گفتگو میں بھی تھی۔ وہ قائداعظمؒ کا ذکر کرتے ہوئے بھیگے دل سے کہہ رہے تھے کہ انہوں نے جنگ کے بغیر ایک دن بھی جیل نہ جا کے پاکستان بنایا ان کے پاکستان کی قدر کرو۔ پاکستان نہ بنتا تو میں ہندو ڈی آئی جی کا اردلی ہوتا۔ اس وقت وہ قائداعظمؒ کے اردلی لگ رہے تھے اور یہ شان انہیں پاکستان اور پاکستانیوں سے محبت نے دی ہے۔ نحیف ونزار شخص کے وجود میں بجلیاں وجد کرتی تھیں۔ دبلا پتلا شخص کیسا کوہسار صفت تھا کہ آج اس کے ذکر سے ہی دشمنوں پر لرزہ طاری ہو جاتا ہے۔ چیمہ صاحب نے زندگی کا مقصد ہی قائداعظمؒ کے پاکستان کی تعمیروترقی بنایا۔ انہوں نے کہا ’’صرف اور صرف پاکستان‘‘۔ یہ نعرہ پاکستان کے ظالم آمر اور بھگوڑے صدر جنرل پرویز مشرف کے اس نعرے کے مقابلے میں زندہ اور سچا ہے۔ ’’سب سے پہلے پاکستان‘‘۔ اس کی ترجیحات میں سب سے پہلے پاکستان کو بدنام اور برباد کرنا تھا مگر یہ ملک دلوں میں آباد ہو رہا ہے۔ ماہ رمضان کی شب قدر میں بننے والا یہ ملک رہتی دنیا تک آباد رہے گا کہ شب قدر ہزار مہینوں سے بہتر ہے کتنی ایسی راتیں آ رہی ہیں اور پھر اجالے کی طرح اُجلی خواہش جو ہر دل میں روشن ہے[/SIZE] [/RIGHT]

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Tightening the belt: Go after secretaries, say provincial civil servants
 

[B]Tightening the belt: Go after secretaries, say provincial civil servants[/B]

LAHORE: The Provincial Management Service Association (PMSA) has urged the Punjab government to consider cutting the perks and privileges of senior bureaucrats and tackle corruption if it is serious about ending its financial crisis.

The Punjab government is considering abolishing a number of posts in order to cut its expenses. The PMSA represents officers of the Provincial Civil Service and the Provincial Management Service.

PMSA President Rai Manzoor Nasir told The Express Tribune on Saturday that the Punjab government’s idea to abolish redundant posts sounded good, but he believed it would prove no more than a political stunt.

“The Punjab government’s proposals do not explain how much money it will save,” he said. Nasir said that by cutting hundreds of BPS-19, BPS-20 and BPS-21 posts the Punjab government would save only around Rs550 million per month.

He said that 11 PMS officials of BPS-21 and 11 of BPS-20, who recently completed the National Management Course and graduated from the National Institute of Public Administration could not get seats because the Punjab government’s proposals would cut the quotas for these grades.

Nasir said that the Punjab government’s only serious option to end the financial crunch was to take action against pilferage. “Each secretary has six to eight vehicles, huge medical, travel and other allowances and much more,” he said.

He said the government should take action against the senior member of the Board of Revenue and the chief secretary, who he accused of corruption along with patwaris.

Sources in the Services and General Administration Department told The Express Tribune that the senior member of the Board of Revenue and the local government secretary had presented, to a cabinet committee working on cutting the government’s non-development expenditure, a list merely naming the posts to be abolished, without details of how much cutting these posts would save.

The cabinet committee has approved the cutting of several senior posts in the police and four executive district officers in each district government. It is also considering downgrading the posts of divisional commissioners and DCOs of five district governments in Punjab.

The posts of EDOs for information technology, law, literacy and revenue are to be abolished. Also to go are a post each of member (general) and member (judicial) in the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team, as well as one post each of planning and development member and joint chief economist.

The posts of commissioners of divisions not having city district governments would be downgraded from BS-21 to BS-20, but the posts of commissioners of divisions having city district governments would continue to be in BS-21. All divisional commissioners would be downgraded from BS-21 to BS-20.

The committee approved the downgrading of the DCOs of Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi from BS-21 to BS-20 and the DCOs in the 31 other districts from BS-20 to 19.

The police jobs to be abolished are additional IGs for vigilance, research and development, and operations, and DIGs for sports and administration.

An additional IG told The Express Tribune that many DIGs are already working on the additional IGs posts, like at the Crimes Investigation Department and the Investigation branch. He said that additional IGs Sarmad Saeed, Chaudhry Tanveer, Humayun Raza Shafi, Kalbe Abbas, Muhammad Rafique and Muhammd Waseem were working in BS 21 and would not be affected.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23rd, 2011.

Source:
[url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/107754/tightening-the-belt-go-after-secretaries-say-provincial-civil-servants/]Tightening the belt: Go after secretaries, say provincial civil servants – The Express Tribune[/url]

Career `pitfalls` for DMG officers
 

LAHORE, Jan 23: The slashing of senior posts in the Punjab government’s civil bureaucracy has largely affected officers belonging to district management group (DMG), reducing career prospects (promotions) for them at least in the province.

“We are promoted against available notified seats in each province. Reduction in seats means reduction of promotion prospects,” a senior official said.

A number of mid-career DMG officers seeking anonymity told Dawn that the officers belonging to provincial services had also lost posts but their career would not be affected as they would be adjusted against 200 to 250 posts lying vacant at present.

Provincial Management Service (PMS) officers are occupying 36 each posts of deputy district officer (staff) revenue and coordination and 18 posts of registration which are going to be abolished. As many as 36 posts of executive district officers-revenue (EDO-revenue) are also being abolished and PMS officers hold 17 of them.

DMG officers said that as per the government decision they had lost nine posts in BS-21, 18 in BS-20, and over 13 in BS-19. “This means there will be no promotions of DMG officers against these posts,” said one of the officers.

The lost BS-21 posts include four commissioners of divisions having no city district government, and five DCOs of city district governments. These posts have been downgraded to BS-20.

The BS-20 posts include secretaries of the seven abolished departments, two each members of the Planning and Development Department and the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team, and seven special secretaries.The lost posts in BS-19 include that of the withdrawn cadre of EDO-revenue and of additional secretaries of the abolished departments.

The officers said presence of senior DMG officers against junior posts in Punjab was another major hurdle in the promotion of mid-career officers.

There is only one post of BS-22 in Punjab which is of the chief secretary. But four BS-22 officers are staying here against BS-21 posts, blocking the posting of officers of the same grades. They include P&D Chairman Javaid Aslam, Senior Member Board of Revenue Akhlaq Tarar, Additional Chief Secretary Sami Saeed and former chief secretary Javed Mehmood.

Some senior officers in BS-21 belonging to the Seventh Common are also staying here to block posting or career progress of the officers junior to them. “They must go to the federal government to create room for the promotion of mid-career officers,” an official said.

Source:
[url=http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/24/career-pitfalls-for-dmg-officers.html]Career `pitfalls` for DMG officers | DAWN.COM[/url]

Commissioners may regain powers to post revenue officials
 

[B]Commissioners may regain powers to post revenue officials[/B]

PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The divisional commissioners in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are likely to regain powers to post revenue officials, Dawn learnt here on Monday.

A decision to re-delegate authority to divisional commissioners to reshuffle tehsildars and naib tehsildars was expected in the next meeting of provincial cabinet, which had conditionally empowered the revenue department last year to exercise those powers, an official told Dawn .The powers to post the officials had been a contentious issue between the divisional commissioners and revenue department since the formation of the incumbent provincial government.

The commissioners in the pre-devolution era used to exercise these powers, however, the revenue department got this authority after the dissolution of commissioner`s office.

Again in mid-2008, the powers were re-delegated to the commissioners, when government restored their offices. The decision annoyed the high-ranking officials of the revenue department and its minister, Syed Murid Kazim.

Mr Kazim, during one of the high level meetings, had complained about lack of powers to transfer and post these officers. He had pleaded for withdrawal of these powers from the commissioners and handing them over to the department again.

Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti while chairing a cabinet meeting had conditionally allowed revenue department to exercise the powers for a period of one month only.

It was decided that the chief minister himself would review the performance of the department and in case of unsatisfactory outcomes, the powers of reshuffling tehsildars and naib tehsildars would be withdrawn from it and handed over back to commissioners, the official said.

Similarly, the chief minister had also constituted a committee with Minister for Law, Human Rights and Parliamentary Affairs Barrister Arshad Abdullah as its head to look into the matter and submit recommendations in this regard.

The committee had also put its weight behind the commissioners and recommended that powers of making transfer and posting of tehsildars and naib tehsildars should remain with them, the official added.

He said that recommendations of the committee and reports compiled after months of monitoring, in line with the chief minister`s directives, had been forwarded to the Chief Minister`s Secretariat. “These will be discussed in the cabinet meeting, whenever it is convened,” he said.

The posting and transfer of revenue officials including patwaris, tehsildars and naib tehsildars had been highly politicised during the last one decade, the official said, adding it was the reason that commissioners were allowed to exercise those powers both in settled and tribal areas.

In all the three provinces, posting and transfer of officials from grade 14 to 16 were made by the field offices just to have a mechanism of accountability at local level, he said.

Source:
[url=http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/25/commissioners-may-regain-powers-to-post-revenue-officials.html]Commissioners may regain powers to post revenue officials | DAWN.COM[/url]

The civil service-convict link
 

[B]The civil service-convict link[/B]

As far as is known, the civil service can trace its roots to the personal servants of the privileged elite in the Roman Empire, who were placed in charge of the administrative structures that were needed by the elite to administer their lands and holdings. As the elites’ influence and power grew, so did their possessions, and with it the influence and power of their servants, who administered the possessions. This is documented in detail in Notitia Dignitatum, a rare document of that period which includes administrative details of the time, and lists of the more privileged.

In more recent times there is historical “civil servant-convict” link going back to the time when Australia was a British penal colony in the 18th century, and a convict assigned to work on a public project was referred to as “civil servant,” much like a literary reference to a sanitary worker in this part of the world is “halal-khor,” or “legitimate breadwinner,” to confer dignity to him, and to his work.

In many European countries “civil servant” is also used for a “conscientious objector,” or one who does other work in lieu of compulsory military service, which his “conscience” may not allow. Since “conscience” is a must for someone to be a conscientious objector, and there is also no compulsory military service in Pakistan, the issue in the context of this country is probably redundant.

In 1947, out of 1,157 Muslim officers in the Indian Civil Service and Indian Police Service, a handful who opted for Pakistan, plus one Christian officer, made up the core of the country’s civil service, which also included senior officers from non-administrative services. This was the first and last group of civil servants who stayed the course as bureaucracy, offering sound advice and working under the direction of a political government made up largely of feudal elites, or the local equivalents of the Roman privileged elite.

After Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, however, the civil servants broke loose, when under fellow-civil servants, first Ghulam Mohammad, and then Iskander Mirza, they took charge of the country, relegating the politicians to virtual servitude. Their bureaucratic minds, which had little use for democracy, came up with adjustment to the concept, such as “controlled” democracy and “guided democracy.” Plato and his devotees must have turned in their graves. Because of their actions, the Pakistani civil servants came close to disproving any ancient work bonds with the Roman “personal servants” as they are recorded in Notitia Dignitatum.

Ancient wisdom, however, is not to be trifled with. When the army under Gen Mohammad Ayub Khan sent Iskander Mirza packing in October 1958, the civil servants kowtowed before him and jostled to gain his patronage. However, some of the best work delivered by the civil servants was during the ten-year rule of the later Field Marshal Ayub Khan. This could be because Ayub dismissed hundreds of civil servants soon after seizing power, and those who survived the chop worked extra hard to save their own jobs. It could also be that the mindset of civil servants in Pakistan, inured through training and through their larger-than-life places in the hierarchy since independence, was not of public servants but of masters, and were well-suited to better performance in the controlled environment of dictatorship.

Gen Yahya Khan, who succeeded Ayub in March 1969, struck terror in civil servants’ hearts by dismissing three hundred and three of them. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who followed Yahya Khan as civilian president, and then prime minister, outdid both Ayub and Yahya, by dismissing 1,600 civil servants. These dismissals, starting from Ayub, reinforced by Yahya and doubly emphasised by Bhutto, were a clear message to Pakistan’s civil servants that their role, as it was recorded in the ancient Notitia Dignitatum, had not changed.

With regard to the demise of our civil service, some of the worst damage done in this period was by the judiciary, just as it had done since 1954 when it legitimised the dismissal of the constituent assembly by Governor General Ghulam Mohammad. The judiciary likewise legitimised Ayub Khan’s seizure of power under the 13th- century “doctrine of necessity,” thereby subordinating itself to the executive, a positions where it has remained since. The present judiciary is exerting itself to regain its independence, but the rulers are sparing no efforts to obstruct that effort.

All democratic civilian rulers who replaced dictators have wanted, almost neurotically, to keep the judiciary subservient, and “safeguarding” judicial subservience has been their priority No 1. One such democratic ruler launched a physical assault on the Supreme Court in 1997, while the present, the latest model of this kind of democratic rulers, is doing his frantic best to subdue it.

Through its “reforms” in 1973, which ended cadres in the service and thereby constitutional protection of service to civil servants, the PPP government under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sounded the death knell for it. And this applied not only to the most elite among the elite, the CSP cadre. Through its “lateral entry” scheme, the PPP stuffed the civil service with its own nominees, with most damaging consequences for the effectiveness of the service, as well as integrity. The civil service in Pakistan was unable to recover from the blow dealt it by Bhutto. Whatever remains of the civil service today is a highly politicised skeleton of the original, whose main attributes are servility to politicians in power, and incompetence.

Establishing a “civil servant-convict” link will not be hard. Scores of civil servants in every country have been convicted, with many perhaps for crimes no less than of convicts in Australia when it was a British penal colony. With all that is in the news in Pakistan pertaining to various government institutions and ministries – including the ministry of religious affairs, and now even the Foreign Office – such link would appear patent.

This link was most glaring in the hasty presidential pardon granted to a former civil servant, the powerful interior minister in the present federal cabinet, immediately after he was convicted by the Supreme Court. Mr Rehman Malik will now no longer be a “convict” on record, but a “pardoned convict.”

Source:
[url=http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7990712-the-civil-serviceconvict-link/content/63128310-new-delhi-last-week-proposed-talks-between-the-countries-top-foreign-ministry-civil-servants]The civil service-convict link[/url]

[B]Umer Rasool elected president of DMG officers’ association[/B]


LAHORE: The District Management Group (DMG) officers elected their association’s office-bearers for the year 2009-10 at Punjab Civil Officers Mess on Sunday.

Implementation and Coordination Secretary Umer Rasool was elected president of the association, while Muhammad Mehmood, staff officer to the Punjab chief secretary was elected senior vice president. Local Government Director General Hassan Nasir Jami was elected vice president, and Suqrat Aman Rana was elected general secretary. A female officer, Shan Aman Rana was elected treasurer of the association.

Only 80 of the total 265 registered voters cast their ballots.

Rasool defeated Dr Nasir Javed and Punjab Health Secretary Anwar Ahmed Khan for the president’s slot. Mehmood defeated Shafqatur Rehman Ranjha, while Rana defeated Lahore District Coordination Officer Sajjad Bhutta.

The association also elected 11 members of its executive committee. They are Directorate of Staff Development Project Director Muhammad Aslam Kamboh, Services and General Administration Department Additional Secretary (Welfare) Ahad Khan Cheema, Silwat Saeed, Ali Jan, Lodhran DCO Khurram Khan, Karim Khurshid, Dr Nasir Javed, Amar Khan, Ahmed Aziz Tarar and two women – Salah Saeed and Ayesha Hameed.

[url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\06\02\story_2-6-2009_pg13_7]Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan[/url]

Civil servants launch Rs80b counter proposal
 

[B]Civil servants launch Rs80b counter proposal[/B]

LAHORE: The association of provincial civil servants has drawn up its own financial plan that would save the Punjab government Rs80 billion a year, according to the president of the Provincial Management Service and Provincial Civil Service Officers Association (PMSA).
The plan includes a cost-cutting component worth Rs30 billion and reforms that would generate Rs50 billion per annum, said PMSA president Rai Mansoor Nasir.

The Punjab government announced on Sunday that it was cutting 550 posts in the province to curb non-development expenditure. It said the “rightsizing” measure would save Rs6.1 billion a year.

The PMSA’s cost-cutting plan targets perks. Nasir said civil servants should get no more than one official car. At present, he said, District Management Group (DMG) officers got between three and eight cars for official use.

He said all official vehicles should be converted to run on compressed natural gas, which would save millions of rupees spent on fuel each day.

Nasir said that official residences should be less luxurious. “The official residences are over acres. We recommend that the maximum size of an official house should be one kanal. The extra land should be sold or used for some other purpose,” he said.

He said the allowance for the repair of these residences must be curtailed. He claimed that a DMG officer had spent Rs8.8 million on the repair of his official residence in 2010.

Nasir said that the practice of giving officers special wage packages disguised as project allowances must be abolished. Officers’ medical allowances should be curbed, he said. “The medical bills run into millions in the case of DMG officers,” he said.He said the utilities allowance given to provincial secretaries at Rs30,000 per month should be withdrawn because it was “discriminatory” and made the other officers jealous.

He suggested that foreign trips by senior officers be kept to a minimum. Officers with dual nationality should be banned or dismissed from government service, he said. He did not explain how this would save money. Nasir said the government should minimise transfers, since each one lost money in the form of transfer grants. It should also stop posting junior officers to senior seats, he said, as this gave the junior officers the salaries and perks of higher grades. He said all officers on special duty (OSDs) from the federal government must be returned to the Centre. “Why should the Punjab government pay them when they are not doing any work? Even the rules framed by the DMG make it illegal for OSDs in BS-22 to stay in Punjab.”
Nasir said the provincial government sends provincial civil servants for training to the National Institute of Public Administration at a cost of Rs650,000 per officer. The province could save millions by sending them instead to the Management and Professional Development Department. By developing the MPDD, it could start training officers from other provinces and generate an income from this.

He said commissioners, district coordination officers and other field officers should seek donations for health and education projects. “Each year religious institutions get billions of rupees in charity. Why can’t this be channelled into the health and education sectors?”

He said over 60 federal officers not in the All Pakistan Unified Groups should be sent back to the federal government.
Revenue Dept reforms

Nasir said that a PMSA committee had proposed a set of Revenue Department reforms to the Punjab government in 2008 and 2009 which would double the revenue generated by the province.

These reforms would curtail various corrupt practices, he said. For example, the government should draw up a schedule of property prices in rural areas, like it does in urban areas, to prevent pilferage

Nasir described the government austerity plan as “the brain child of DMG officers” which would block the already delayed promotions of provincial civil servants. He said the government’s claim that the job cuts would save Rs6.1 was “totally false”.

He said: “Even if officers are recalled from the field and placed at the disposal of the Services and General Administration Department, they will still be getting salaries so where are these savings coming from?”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2011.

Source:
[url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/109593/civil-servants-launch-rs80b-counter-proposal/]Civil servants launch Rs80b counter proposal – The Express Tribune[/url]

PCS officers declare staff reduction conspiracy to block promotion
 

[B]PCS officers declare staff reduction conspiracy to block promotion[/B]

Staff Report

LAHORE: PCS officers have declared the recent step of reducing the staff from government departments a conspiracy to block their promotions and not a move to save billions of rupees.

They blamed the District Management Group for hatching the conspiracy against their colleagues as PCS/PSS officers were denied promotions, especially in higher grades like BS-21 and BS-20. The PCS officers said that their association had proposed reforms in different areas, including the Revenue Department, to the Punjab government, through which it could save more than Rs 80 billion annually. PCS Officers’ Association President Rai Manzoor Nasir told Daily Times that the proposals were handed over to Raja Zafrul Haq and Senator Pervez Rashed. He said that the proposed reforms were aimed at reducing corruption and fraud in the government departments through different ways and a great amount can be saved through stopping leakage of revenue.

Source:
[url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\01\27\story_27-1-2011_pg13_4]Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan[/url]

New administrative restructuring of FBR
 

[B]New administrative restructuring of FBR [/B]

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD (January 27, 2011) : The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reduced the number of FBR Members from 12 to nine under the new organisational structure with a view to eliminating overlapping of functions and continuation of reforms in the tax administration. Under the administrative restructuring of the FBR, the Board has created a new post of FBR Member RGST/ERPS to exclusively deal with the issue of the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) and Expeditious Refund Payment System (EPRS).

FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics Abrar Ahmad Khan has been appointed as Member RGST/EPRS. The time bound position of FBR Member RGST/ERPS would continue till January 2012. Sources said that Asrar Rauf FBR Member Direct Tax Policy would be appointed as Additional Secretary Revenue Division to look after the tax policy matters of the FBR. The government would appoint FBR former Member Tax Policy and Reforms as Afzal Naubahar Kayani as FBR Member Inland Revenue Service after merger of FBR Member Direct Tax Policy and FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy.

Mumtaz Haider Rizvi, (BS-21), Member, FBR, Islamabad have been transferred and posted as Member (Customs), FBR, Islamabad, Mahmood Alam, (BS-22) Member Indirect Tax Policy as Member Strategic Planning and Statistics. Ahmad Dildar, (BS-20) Chief (Admin) has been transferred and posted as FBR Member Legal (OPS), FBR, Islamabad. Tahir Raza Naqvi, (BS-21) an officer of District Management Group would join as FBR Member Administration, FBR, Islamabad and Abrar Ahmad Khan, Member (SP&S), FBR, Islamabad has been transferred and posted as Member (RGST/ERPS), FBR, Islamabad.

Under the new organisational structure of the FBR notified here on Wednesday, the Board has abolished the slots of FBR Member Domestic Operations North and FBR Member Domestic Operations South whereas the post of FBR Member Direct Tax Policy and FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy has been merged into a single post of FBR Member Inland Revenue. Similarly, the posts of The FBR Member Customs Operations and FBR Member Customs Policy have also been merged into a single position of FBR Member Customs.

According to the revamped structure of the Board, the FBR has suppressed Board's Officer Order of even number dated 30th June, 2009 regarding functional integration of tax administration, it has been decided to re-organise the structure of FBR as follows. The Federal Board of Revenue, headed by the Chairman shall henceforth, comprise of nine Members of BS-21 or BS-20 OPS of the FBR.

The following eight members shall be permanent Members of the Board:- Member Strategic Planning and Statistics (SP&S); Member Inland Revenue Service (IRS); Member Customs; Member Legal; Member Enforcement and Accounting (E&A); Member (Taxpayers Audit); Member (Administration) and Member Facilitation and Taxpayer Education (FATE). The post of Member Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST)/Expeditious Refunds Payment System (EPRS) will continue till first of January, 2012, only.

Under the previous set-up, 12 Members who had directly reported to the FBR Chairman, included FBR Member Enforcement and Accounting, FBR Member Direct Tax Policy, FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy, FBR Member Customs Operations, FBR Member Customs Policy, FBR Member Domestic Operations North, FBR Member Domestic Operations South, FBR Member Taxpayer's Audit, FBR Member Legal, FBR Member Administration, FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics along with FBR Member Taxpayer Education and Facilitation.

Following implementation of new structure, the new set-up would cover FBR Member Inland Revenue, FBR Member Enforcement and Accounting FBR Member Customs, FBR Member Taxpayer Audit, FBR Member Legal FBR Member Administration, FBR Member Strategic Planning and Statistics and FBR Member Taxpayer Education and Facilitation. There is no change in the number of support FBR members.

Sources said that the major change under the new organisational structure of the FBR is the abolition of the posts of FBR Member Domestic Operations North and FBR Member Domestic Operations South. The FBR Member Enforcement and Accounting would solely deal with the issue of enforcement and compliance at the level of field formations.

The FBR Member Domestic Operations (North) was responsible for supervising domestic tax operations of northern field offices. The DGs of RTOs Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Abbottabad and LTUs Islamabad and Lahore were required to report to him. He was also doing the job of monitoring revenue collection and ensuring achievement of revenue targets by northern field offices. Any other duties assigned by Chairman FBR. The FBR Member Domestic Operations (South) was responsible for supervising domestic tax operations of southern field offices. The DGs of RTOs ie Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta and LTU Karachi were required to report to him. He was also monitoring revenue collection and ensuring achievement of revenue targets by southern field offices. Any other duties are assigned by the FBR Chairman.

Under the new organisational structure of Inland Revenue, all domestic taxes including income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty are covered under Inland Revenue. The FBR Member Direct Tax Policy and FBR Member Indirect Tax Policy have been merged into FBR Member Inland Revenue.

After merger of posts of the Member Customs Operations and FBR Member Customs Policy, only FBR Member Customs would deal with all the customs related matters. When the FBR had appointed 12 members in the past, it was considered to be major change under the restructuring process to separate the policy and operational side to ensure integration of direct and indirect taxes. Under the new administrative restructuring of the FBR, the number of Members directly reporting to the FBR Chairman has been reduced from 12 to nine, sources added.

Source:
[url=http://www.brecorder.com/news/top-stories/1148502:new-administrative-restructuring-of-fbr.html]Top Stories - New administrative restructuring of FBR[/url]

PMS officers reject Punjab govt’s rightsizing move
 

[B]PMS officers reject Punjab govt’s rightsizing move[/B]

* Doubt transparency of government plan

* Allege move aimed at hindering their promotion

Staff Report

LAHORE: The Provincial Management Officers (PMS) Association Punjab on Monday rejected the policy of “downsizing” and “rightsizing” adopted by the Punjab government.

A meeting of the association held under the chairmanship of its President Rai Manzoor Nasir and attended by all 50 members of the executive committee and all vice presidents representing all divisions of Punjab alleged that the move was launched by the District Management Group (DMG) to block the promotion of PCS officers in Punjab.

The participants said the PMS association had held eight meetings with chief secretary, services secretary and CM’s adviser Zulfiqar Khosa during the last 20 days. If it all was transparent, why did they not discuss it with the PMS association, they asked.

They termed the claims of saving Rs 6.1 billion through downsizing totally false and wrong. The government had not clarified whether this saving would be monthly, annual or one time.

They said sending officers to surplus pool was not understandable and questioned how can the cadre of an officer be changed.

The participants claimed that the PMS officers were due to be promoted in the meeting of promotion board scheduled for January 27. All the obstacles in the way of promotion of PMS officers, like the rule of minimum length of service, have been amended. They have got training from NIPA and NMC and were fully eligible for promotion. They alleged that move of rightsizing was initiated by the DMG to block their promotion.

The meeting was told that the PMS association had proposed a formula, which could save Rs 30 billion per annum. It was suggested that the DMG officers should be provided one vehicle according to their entitlement as against three to eight vehicles being used by them in violation of the rules. DMG officers spend millions of rupees on official residences in the name of repair, which should be stopped. Maximum size of an official house should not be more than one kanal. All non-APUG officers (customs, accounts, income tax, postal, railway etc) must be sent back to federal government, as Sindh High Court has declared their postings in the provinces illegal and unconstitutional.

The participants said all special packages for commissioner Lahore/project director of Ring Road be abolished. These measures could save a hefty sum, they added.

The PMS association requested the Punjab chief minister to give it time to explain its claims and assertion. It said it has already given a package of “revenue reforms” to the Punjab government, which was not implemented by the DMG.

Source:
[url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\01\25\story_25-1-2011_pg13_6]Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan[/url]

City administrator returns to office to clip DCO’s wings
 

[B]City administrator returns to office to clip DCO’s wings[/B]

KARACHI: City Administrator Fazlur Rehman has restricted District Coordination Officer (DCO) Muhammad Hussein Syed from taking any big decisions without prior permission from him.

The order has curtailed the DCO’s financial powers for any amount exceeding Rs200,000.

The order has opened a debate whether similar limitations would be imposed on executive district officers (EDO), district officers (DO), executive directors and deputy district officers of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK), who enjoy much greater discretion in terms of financial decision-making.
“The DDO’s financial powers are for millions but the DCO can’t sanction even Rs200,000,” commented an EDO. “It would now kick off a tug of war between the two senior bureaucrats.”

Some key officers of the CDGK have also tactfully maneuvered to show their loyalty to the DCO or, in some cases, the city administrator.

A CDGK spokesman told The Express Tribune that the administrator could not restrict the DCO from exercising his financial, legal and constitutional rights and powers. “The city administrator can’t go beyond the Sindh Local Government Ordinance-2001 (SLGO-2001), which also defines his limits,” he said.The administrator, who had been hospitalised for around a month, resumed duty on Saturday. The DO for Coordination, Syed Mukarram Sultan Bukhari, issued an office order DO(C)/CDGK/2011/138 to that effect.

Administrator Fazlur Rehman, who is a grade 20 officer from the district management group, soon after resuming office, issued his first official order of 2011, No Administrator/City/Secy/17/201, which drastically reduced the financial powers of the DCO. The order states that in exercise of the powers conferred upon the City Administrator under sections 18 and 20 of the SLGO-2001, he has issued directives to ensure strict financial discipline and help check expenditures in the CDGK with immediate effect.

According to the administrator’s orders, the DCO has been given the follow directions: Any cheque above Rs200,000 shall be countersigned by the administrator; All sanction exceeding Rs200,000 shall be obtained from the administrator; The approval and sanction of all development schemes and projects shall be sought from the administrator; All releases by the

Government of Pakistan and the Government of Sindh including the CDGK and the Annual Development Programme (ADP) shall be signed and issued by the administrator; and medical bills exceeding Rs30,000 shall be submitted for approval from the administrator.

The DCO told The Express Tribune that he would be able to comment on the situation on Saturday, once he has read through the order.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2011.

Source:
[url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/110685/city-administrator-returns-to-office-to-clip-dcos-wings/]City administrator returns to office to clip DCO[/url]