Government reforms commission

In a much welcome move last week the government announced the setting up of a 'National Commission on Government Reforms' headed by a highly respected economist, administrator and a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Dr Ishrat Hussain.
Articulating the objective behind the move, President General Pervez Musharraf later said, "we must remove obstacles in the way of efficient provision of services to achieve a visible improvement in the quality of life for the common man." Of course, reform of government functioning cannot be achieved in just one go; it requires both time and determination. Hence unlike the usual commissions established for specific purposes having clearly stated terms of reference (TORs) and a fixed tenure, there are no pre-determined TORs or a fixed tenure for the present one. It is to formulate and present its proposals on a continual basis.
More importantly, it is to be supervised by a committee, jointly headed by the President and the Prime Minister while its members are to include the four chief ministers. Which means the commission's recommendations stand a strong chance of being approved and implemented, too. Also, the selection of Dr Hussain as the commission head holds a special significance.
Belonging to the Pakistan Central Superior Services and having worked in the federal and provincial governments as also with important national and international institutions, he is fully conversant with the working of the government as well as international agencies, which makes him a perfect choice for the assignment.
Inefficiency and poor delivery services being intrinsic to our government's functioning, challenges before the new commission are many. An immediate one is to make the third tier of government ie, local bodies, introduced by the last Musharraf government, work effectively.
Towards that end, it is important to put in place a local government cadre like the ones that exist at the federal and provincial plans to ensure better delivery of education, health care and social services as well as basic amenities at the grass roots level.
This can be done both through local recruitment as well as transfers from the provincial services. Those serving the provincial governments need to be given a choice to opt for local governments, but such transfers must be made on a permanent basis so that the members of local government cadres develop a strong interest in improving the conditions of local communities. Another area begging change concerns the perks and privileges enjoyed by members of the civil services.
Although their salaries are incommensurate with the cost of living, they are entitled to perks and privileges that defy logic. For instance, as per a study carried out by the Planning Commission, a Grade-22 officer is served by a support staff of 19 to attend to his/her personal needs both at the office and home.
Additionally, senior officers get government cars and housing while the government also pays their petrol, phone and electricity bills. This clearly is wasteful expenditure and must be curtailed in a judicious manner. It would make sense to take away all such special benefits and make substantial increases in salaries to enable people to decide how best to spend their income.
The commission must also try and remove the duplication of efforts at all the three tiers of governance. As it is, the framers of the 1973 Constitution had placed a number of subjects on the Concurrent List for a ten-year period. The obvious intent behind the provision was to enable the provinces to develop the capability to take care of those subjects on their own.
Nearly 33 years on, the list still exists with the result that the federal and provincial governments continue to invest effort and energy in some of the same areas, such as education and health care, at a considerable cost to the exchequer and a sense of resentment in the provinces.
The pattern is being repeated in the province-local government relations. Aside from creating distortions in the system of governance, the situation generates all sorts of problems in the promotion of investment as well as public service delivery. We expect that the commission will pay attention to all these issues with the sense of urgency they deserve.