Governance goals

Governance has remained a recurring issue in Pakistani officialdom. And yet we have political parties that are very well organised with a chain of command that rivals that of our defence forces regarded as one of the few well organised institutions in this country. So why is it that political party leaders, who would brook no dissension within their party ranks, penalising any member who does not toe the party leader's line, nonetheless not only support but actively fuel a system of governance when in power that reeks of disorganisation, lack of transparency and accountability.
The sceptics amongst us, and they do abound given the state of our poor governance, argue that the leash that a party leader wields when the party is in power is of summary dismissal that would automatically dry out all access to government revenue - be it grant of procurement contracts, or appointing those who are neither academically qualified for a job nor indeed possess relevant experience to undertake the responsibilities that the job entails, or seek to take non-essential foreign trips with dailies and travel allowances, or routinely abuse perks, including government-funding for residence/car/utility bills. In other words, no individual, certainly not the party leader, would lose materially from such state-sponsored activities; in contrast a party member may be required to inject funds into the party coffers and as per some credible reports in the party leader's personal account. The direct loss is that of the state, and indirectly of the tax payers, and accounts for the systematic erosion of good governance in state institutions that are complicit in benefiting the influential at nearly all fora - centre, province or local government.
The World Bank's Daniel Kaufman extends the concept of corruption to include 'legal corruption' in which power is abused within the confines of the law - as those with power often have the ability to make laws for their own protection. For example, the Sharif administration passed the Foreign Currency Account (Protection) Ordinance 1992 that stipulated that "no person holding a foreign currency account shall be deprived of his right to hold or operate such account or in any manner be restricted temporarily or permanently to lawfully sell, withdraw, remit, transfer, use as security or take out foreign currency there from within or outside Pakistan"; an act that would render any outflow of capital from Pakistan post-1992 legal. Another example is issuing an SRO for a limited time, like making steel imports duty free till an import consignment has reached its buyers' warehouse.
Pakistani political parties have a line of control that, as aforementioned, rivals that of the army though for the many turncoats spawned by our politics it is limited to the time that the party is in power. In addition, our political parties display all the hallmarks associated with good governance notably having a strategic direction, ensuring compliance with policies, standards and procedures and execution of strategy and managing of risks. Pakistani politicians' definition of these elements of good governance are however unfortunate: (i) strategic direction is defined as winning as many seats as possible in the national and provincial assemblies; (ii) ensuring compliance with policies, standards and procedures is defined as using all available legitimate and illegitimate avenues for victory at the polls that include pre-poll rigging ranging from changing the polling station of opposition supporters to one inconveniently far away (in use only when certain areas of a constituency are known to support the opposition), to earmarking public funds for constituencies where the party wants to retain its seat or those where development funds can change voting patterns to those where jalsas can make a difference to where the electables can be lured with promise of job/position/ministry; and then of course there is poll rigging which is becoming increasingly difficult with the armed forces overseeing the elections; and (iii) execution of strategy and managing of risks is defined in our politics as not hesitating to seek a coalition even with a party that is ideologically opposed to their ideals. An example is the non implementation of the Protection of Women Bill against violence (Punjab) passed on 23 February 2016 hailed by women and liberals inside and outside Pakistan that included the establishment of district-level panels to investigate allegations of abuse and mandating the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders. The why was revealed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman after a meeting with the Prime Minister: "the Prime Minister heard our reservations against the law. He promised to amend the bill so that it does not contradict with the Quran and Sunnah."
The reason for the PM's interference in a decision taken by the Punjab Assembly was to keep the Maulana within the coalition - a man whose party has no representation in the Punjab Assembly but he has 9 general, 3 reserved and one minority seat in the national assembly, and 17 in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. This was risk managing by the Prime Minister which also accounts for many a party leader deferring punishment of a forward group till such a time as the group has splintered or the ring leader isolated and dealt with. In this context, the PML-N forward bloc of around 40 to 50 MNAs (who left the assembly prior to the winding up speech of the federal finance minister in June this year, promoting the Speaker to declare lack of quorum, at a time when the Prime Minister was out of the country) have not yet been dealt with but if past precedence is anything to go by they would no doubt be dealt with at a more appropriate time.
In established democracies the link between performance and election results is clear and unambiguous while in Pakistan that link has remained tenuous at best though the situation is changing as the first elected government completed its tenure in 2013 and gave over power peacefully to another party. Post-2013 election results revealed that the PPP was wiped out in all provinces other than interior Sindh where electables continued to hold sway; the PPP's lack of performance and its leaders' perceived focus on corruption during its five-year rule - a contention supported by mega scandals that appeared in the media - were also believed to be a factor in its defeat. The PML-N in marked contrast accepts the linkage between performance and election outcomes but its perception of its own governance gains and/or performance are grossly exaggerated by its federal ministers, a fact which is disabling the relevant ministries from taking informed decisions to correct the situation.
A look at the three-year performance of the PML-N shows three disturbing trends. First, a government strategy is to doctor key macroeconomic data to show a performance that is much better than is in fact the case; this has entailed relocating several items from their true position in a balance-sheet to another to show a better performance than is the case - an example is taking a dedicated fund like Gas Infrastructure Development Cess from non-tax revenue to other taxes. Reportedly, the claim by Water and Power Minister with respect to revenue based load shedding, or more shedding in areas where a high number of bills are in arrears, has been challenged by several federal ministers.
Secondly, senior appointments in state-owned entities (SOEs) continue to be on the basis of nepotism, with the Prime Minister abandoning his decision to appoint three men of integrity to undertake recruitment for a senior position in the first year of his current stint in power, and replacing it with those having rendered some form of service to him/his family/his party in the past. The result of this flawed policy for the two major SOEs has been anything but positive in terms of improved governance after three years of a PML-N government. Pakistan Steel Mills has been non operational for the past year while still paying a huge salary bill from the taxpayers account to its workforce; and PIA's performance record in terms of on-time flights and the satisfaction of its clients is also at an all time low though reports indicate that the airline is no longer suffering from an operational loss. Be that as it may, one must appreciate the fact that the PML-N has adopted a widely supported structure of corporate governance in SOEs but unfortunately the members of the board of directors of several SOEs consist of government officials who continue to act as stumbling blocks to transparency and accountability in matters of recruitment, in matters of salaries, in matters of legal and regulatory framework.
And finally, the Sharif administration is marked by infighting between ministers and the style of governance of the party leader is marked by divide and rule strategy which unfortunately is strengthening ministers' claims of flawed data/claims against each other.
Overall government effectiveness declined from 23.9 percentile rank in 2012 to 22.1 in 2014 - one of the six aggregate governance indicators compiled by World Governance Indicators 1996-2014. However the Sharif administration would no doubt refer to the improved rating in the other five: (i) Rule of law improved from 0.44 in 2012 to 0.61 in 2014 no doubt reflective of the success of the operation Zarb-e-Azb; (ii) improvement in political stability and absence of violence/terrorism improved from 0.19 in 2012 to 0.33 percentile rank however while some of the improvement can again be attributed to success of the operation Zarb-e-Azb yet political stability today is again not in evidence; (iii) Voice and accountability improved from 22.7 in 2012 to 27.1 percentile ranking in 2014 however Gallup world poll rated Pakistan lower in 2014 at 0.27 against 0.33 in 2008 and Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated us at 0.36 in 2014 against 0.40 in 2012; (iv) Control of corruption improved from 0.25 in 2012 to 0.33 in 2014 with Gallup giving us a rating of 0.35 in 2014 from 0.19 in 2012 though Asian Development Bank gave us an unchanged rating from 2012 till 2014 of 0.5; and (v) regulatory control strengthened from 0,38 in 2012 to 0.50 in 2014 though EIU gave us a percentile rank of 0.47 in 2012 and 0.44 in 2014.
To conclude, the Prime Minister needs to get briefed on what is happening in federal ministries not by the minister concerned but by his colleagues and/or independent experts in the field and he must also seek to extricate the executive from taking decisions with respect to senior appointments in SOEs. And finally, the infighting between ministers weakens the party and therefore the party leader, and it is time Nawaz Sharif abandons his policy of divide and rule in favour of improved performance which requires inter-ministerial co-ordination.