The minister

[VetDoctor]

The minister
Idrees Khawaja

Mr X, young and ambitious, has been recently elected as member of the National Assembly. Now he is also a minister. The tenure of the minister is fixed at five years.
He would have to present himself to the public to seek renewal of his contract (at least as MNA if not as minister). The minister knows that he must perform to get his contract renewed – given the poor performance of his predecessor, the public had refused to renew the contract on May 11.
The minister also knows that after five years the public will not renew his contract if he fails to do enough to resolve the crises his ministry is responsible to manage.
Determined to seek contract renewal, the minister aims to explore various solutions and options in the country to an extent never done before. To implement his plan, the minister wants to have as chief executive officer (CEO) of his ministry ie the secretary of the ministry he is in charge of, someone who has technical expertise as well as managerial experience, a degree in engineering or geo-physics or earth sciences from a top-ranked university in the world, has worked in senior positions in multinational firms, has been involved in negotiating contracts with sovereign governments, understands how to set prices of resources etc.
The minister would prefer the CEO to have worked in both public and private sectors. He values the experience of the private sector for the efficiency it inculcates and the premium that it puts on innovation – he wants the CEO and the staff under him to be creative and exhibit the kind of efficiency that characterise the private sector.
To make employees more productive, the minister believes in using a carrot and stick approach. (The minister believes that as a managerial tool the stick has largely been missing in the public sector – nobody ever gets fired for non-performance).
Having explored the market for professionals, the minister is willing to offer a seven figure salary to the kind of CEO he has in mind but he also intends to fire the CEO if he/she fails to deliver. The minister wants to offer a lump sum seven figure salary – no house, no plots. He knows that perks, especially perks in kind, distort incentives.
The minister feels that if the income and profit of his ministry were to be computed for the past, say 30 years, the position would be no different from the loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) – the worth of services rendered is much less than the expenditures incurred.
Having seen the advertisements for the positions of heads of SOEs, the minister prepares one for the position of CEO (secretary in current bureaucratic jargon) of the ministry. The advertisement includes the attributes mentioned above under the title ‘who should apply’. The advertisement is forwarded to the relevant department for publication in the print media.
To his profound shock and utter dismay, the minister is told that he cannot even advertise the position let alone hire the CEO of his choice. This is a severe blow to his aim of doing his bit to resolve the crisis and to his ultimate desire of contract renewal.
Under the law of the land, he must choose from amongst the 50 senior-most bureaucrats. These 50 people have interesting profiles. All of them were inducted 25-30 years back into the Civil Service of Pakistan at the age of 26-28. Now all of them are above 55 years of age. They have master’s degrees in disciplines like history, biology, geography, international relations, political science and law but no one has a degree in engineering or an MBA.
With exploration business on the boom 25 years back, people with such degrees were not motivated to join the Civil Service of Pakistan – they were lured by better paymasters. The combination of engineering and MBA – the ideal academic degrees for the job at hand – was not even in vogue in the market when these 50 bureaucrats were inducted.
The minister is told that he can neither offer market-based competitive salary, nor can he ever fire his CEO. He may get him transferred or at best manage to make him an officer on ‘special duty’ (OSD), but fire – next to impossible.
In case of transfers, the minister can have another CEO – from among those 50 bureaucrats now available. For most of these bureaucrats induction into the civil service was their very first job and none of them has ever worked in the private sector – again a disappointment for the minister. Remember: he holds efficiency and innovation at a premium – attributes learned more in the private sector.
Some bureaucrats are inclined to become the CEO of the ministry in question, but they have other preferences too. One of them eyes the position of head, Federal Board of Revenue, while another one is lobbying to become the CEO of the ministry of finance.
Yet another is spending time trying to clinch the position of chairman, Pakistan Steel Mills and still another wants to head a state-owned bank. While being CEO of this ministry they will continue to lobby for these coveted positions and join immediately when the lobbying yields results, leaving the minister in lurch.
Meanwhile, while being the CEO of one or the other ministry and in the twilight of their career they have to compute their pensions as well and also worry about housing post retirement.
One fine evening the 50 bureaucrats gather at a farm house in the outskirts of Islamabad, the secretaries complain among themselves that after retirement they don’t have a decent place to live in the capital city – the city they are used to, where they have spent most their 30 years tenure. The next day a secretary moves a summary for allotment of plots to senior bureaucrats in Islamabad – 500 sq yards, free of cost.
By 7 pm the same day, the secretaries own plots in the foothills of Margalla. (What made the minister sceptical about efficiency in the public sector?)
With the minister’s hope of contract renewal dashed in the very first year of his tenure, paying heed to the advice of his veteran colleagues, he applies to the relevant authority for a piece of agricultural land, in the outskirts of Islamabad, to grow vegetables.
Five years later the minister’s contract is not renewed by the public. He vacates his residence in the minister’s enclave and moves to his farm house in the outskirts of Islamabad, courtesy the land to grow vegetables.
(This article is a piece of fiction that aims to portray real life)
The writer is an associate professor at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
Email: idreeskhawaja1@gmail. com;
Twitter: @khawaja_idrees

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