Revamp the Civil Service of Pakistan

[Atif Noor Khan]

Revamp the Civil Service of Pakistan

By: Atif Noor Khan

Civil service refers to the body of government officials who are employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial. A well-functioning civil service helps foster good policymaking, effective service delivery, accountability and responsibility in utilizing public resources which are the characteristics of good governance. The importance of the civil service to governance stems from the service’s presence throughout the country and its strong binding character, administrative and managerial capacity of the services, effective policymaking and regulation, effective coordination between institutions of governance, leadership at different levels of administration, service delivery at the cutting-edge level and providing ‘continuity and change’ to the administration. The civil service, as the primary arm of government, must keep pace with the changing times in order to meet the aspirations of the people.
A competent, effective and neutral civil service is the backbone of a country’s governance structure. Countries that do not have an organized civil service system are at a relative disadvantage in executing their programmes and policies. The civil service in Pakistan suffers from a variety of weaknesses including poor training and morale and needs to be reorganized. Public servants have invariably become an instrument in the hands of ministers and other government high-ups. Ethical considerations inherent in public behaviour have become generally dim and, in many cases, beyond the mental grasp of many public functionaries. The desire for self-preservation guides their actions and behaviours. So, there is a dire need to devise some policies to retrieve the situation because the falling standards of civil service hugely impact Pakistan’s poor, thus widening social and economic divisions between the privileged and the underprivileged.

--------------------- Read More in upcoming issue of Jahangir’s World Times January 2016----------------------

[Chavonistic]

Watch out cluster based system may be it would work