Civil service reform

Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan made a pitch to the civil servants on September 14, 2018 regarding support for his reforms agenda, promising in the process a massive turnaround in their lives and the country within two years. In return, he promised them dignity and respect by eliminating their humiliation at the hands of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), higher pay and incentives to scotch the temptation of corruption, merit in promotions, protection of tenure and last but not least, depoliticisation of the bureaucracy. A tall order by any measure or reckoning, the PM's appeal is recognition of the role of the executive arm as the implementer of policy and the institution responsible for the day-to-day-running of the state's affairs. However, in the next breath he lamented the fact that the country was in dire straits financially, lacking money to run the government and victim of a classic debt trap in which fresh loans are required just to service the previous loans and in which the debt mountain increases over time, as has been witnessed in Pakistan's debt trajectory over the years. The PM held out the assurance that civil servants acting in good faith who made honest mistakes would not be penalized; they would in fact receive protection and support from the government. This is a tacit admission of human fallibility, with the real protection to civil servants provided by adherence to rules and procedures that are above questioning from any quarter. The PM also admitted that quick postings and transfers were most disruptive of the work of governments. Promising an 'out of the box' approach to Pakistan's problems, Imran Khan argued that a change in the lavish colonial lifestyle of the elite and bureaucracy would rid the country of debt (a thesis that is questionable at the altar of the harsh economic facts on the ground). Imran Khan exhorted his audience of select senior civil servants to consider before spending any money the majority of young people in the country looking for employment, the millions of out-of-school children, the tragedy of millions of undernourished children, the high rate of mortality amongst women in childbirth and infant deaths due to waterborne diseases. Dilating on the issue of depoliticisation, the PM promised that civil servants' political affiliations or likes and dislikes would not stand in the way and their performance would be the only criterion on which they would be judged.
While the PM's ideas reflect a humanitarian approach to the country's social and health problems and a professional approach to the bureaucracy charged with implementing the government's policies, there are a number of aspects of his speech that bear comment. First and foremost, the PM's 'promise' of a Singapore model in which the bureaucrats' pay would be so high that corruption would not enter their minds misses a very important component of the model he admires. This is the ethical dimension without which all the gold in the world cannot persuade a person in a position of power or influence to forego the potential advantages accruing to such office. And in any case, according to his own admission, the PM cannot promise this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for at least two years. So in essence he is asking the bureaucracy to support the government through their efforts for at least two years, after which they will be richly rewarded. To many civil servants informed about the state of affairs of the country, this may sound like pie in the sky. Second, two Deputy Commissioners in Punjab have been served with notices under the removal of service law for complaining of political interference by PTI parliamentarians in the matter of postings and transfers of lower grade officers under their purview. This development hardly encourages civil servants to abide by the rules and law, a practice long since extinct because of precisely the politicians' penchant for such antics when in power since it serves their patronage networks on which their success in parliamentary politics relies. Third, vacant posts in the federal government and autonomous or semi-autonomous bodies under its control alone, number 170,000. This backlog is said to have accumulated because of the previous government's restrictions on recruitment. In addition, the quotas assigned to the provinces under Article 72, which expired in 2013, were sought to be extended by the previous government for another 20 years and a bill was moved to this effect in parliament but could not be adopted. So the current quota regime relies on a cabinet decision to continue the quota as laid down in Article 72 without constitutional cover. Not only that, the relative shares of the provinces seem tilted in practice in favour of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and against Sindh and Balochistan, a cause for much gnashing of teeth in the latter two provinces. Last but not least, the pet theme of the PTI and Imran Khan, ie corruption, needs to be placed in historical context to understand how quickly after independence the rot set in, starting with false evacuee property claims and escalating thereafter to the present arguably endemic proportions. There is also the current fearful atmosphere amongst civil servants to be dealt with. Some top bureaucrats have been hauled up by NAB ostensibly on corruption charges but in the eyes of many because they were considered too close for comfort to the previous government. Civil servants must be provided an environment in which they can function without fear or favour otherwise the government machinery may well grind to a halt, if it has not already. And the officers of the bureaucracy also need to change their attitudes to the citizen from treating the common man as a colonial servant of the state to a citizen empowered by all the rights provided in the Constitution. PM Imran Khan's speech may not be sufficient to achieve the difficult targets he has outlined. One can only wish the government good luck in this endeavour.