'Naya' style of government

Government is the problem. It is a global problem. There has always been something Orwellian about it; you tease any issue and that monster of a Big Brother pops up. The rise of confrontational parties, who challenge established political order, is symptomatic of the growing unease with government. It is a phenomenon that has world's Political Scientists working overtime.
At home, PTI, capitalized on this anti status-quo sentiment. Its narrative, holding the established political parties responsible for all that is wrong with the country, resonated with the youngish urban voters. Corruption, mother of all evil, was an easy sell. Promise of a different style of government sealed the deal.
It is still salad days of the government but the starters do provide a taste of things to come. Three things stand out: Government's communication skills, its policy formulation and decision-making processes, and the rhetoric-reality gap.
Communication is half the game. Even if you are not firing on all cylinders you can buy time and space if you communicate adroitly. By refusing to shift gears - get out of the campaign mode and all the invective that goes with it - you are wasting precious political capital. People are getting impatient. They don't want to watch reruns of old movies; they are anxious to see the PTI film. As far as they are concerned, Caesar lies buried. Time to move on, they say.
PTI has not put its best foot forward in its choice of government's principal spokesman. He just doesn't fit the bill. The first thing they teach you at the finishing school for Information Ministers is 'speak softly and carry a big stick'. Looks like he learnt only the second half - he wields the lathi, and being dour faced doesn't add glory to the office.
In his defence, we have to say Government's stoicism - the game plan to fix the economy or reset foreign relations -would challenge the best spokesman. Handshake or a conversation, all options on the table, is the kind of meme that a weak opposition becomes strong on. It then becomes easy to make a Todar Mal of the Finance Minister or a Monseigneur of the snappily dressed Foreign Minister, or ask for a Ministry of U-Turns.
Policymaking is either an ace up the government's sleeve or a black cat in a closet in a dark room that the government itself finds hard to find. What is in public domain is that it has been outsourced. We have lost count of the task forces that have been set up to give policy in-puts. Of course it is sensible to seek expert advice, but shouldn't PTI have done so before it made all those promises and its 100-day programme? What if the task forces find fault with the promises or the premise of the programme?
Second, how do the task forces blend into the government processes? They may consist of the most brilliant minds but unlike the 'insiders' - the bureaucracy - they are not privy to the hardwired compulsions of the government. It will be facile to think the bureaucracy is bereft of ideas - they probably have the same ideas as the task forces will come up with - but have a more intuitive sense of what can fly.
Government itself seems to be clueless about how to use the task forces. The Economic Advisory Council (EAC) was set up with great fanfare, but it seems to have been reduced to a foil for unpopular decisions like going to IMF. The government went in with its supplementary budget, which should have been the occasion to present its vision and roadmap for the economy. It was an opportunity lost. By merely 'balancing' the numbers it tacitly accepted the thrust of the budget presented by a government that it wished to put in the dock. There was no discernable footprint of EAC.
Some weeks ago, we had predicted that after a lot of hemming and hawing the government would increase utility prices, hike interest rate, let the rupee slide - and go to the IMF. It did not need any gifts of clairvoyance. It was writ large. That it let so much precious time slip by is a reflection of government's decision-making process.
The toughest decisions are best taken early - at the peak of honeymoon period. The government wasted it on sweet nothings. Buffaloes became the caricature of policy priorities; tad unkind, but did the information minister have to make such a song and dance about it? People are more concerned about jobs and cost of living. If someone in the government is listening, he seems to be helpless.
The PM seems to be expending his indefatigable energy on meetings and meetings - each ending up with an order (properly processed or not), or setting up a body of experts, or undoing a previous decision. There are clear signs of OCD (Obsessive-cabinet disorder). There is a cabinet meeting or two a week; if not, there is always a Provincial cabinet to chair.
Due process is critical to the dictates of transparency and good governance. But there is something missing if in the process 'outcome' becomes a casualty. The recent case of removal of certain heads of banks and regulators is illustrative. They were removed because the person appointing them to the post did not have lawful authority. How is the appointee supposed to know that? Should he ask the government to confirm if the orders are lawful when he gets his appointment letter?
Smart governments know how to reconcile process with outcome (which in the instant case means good performance). We are told the SBP Deputy Governor, for instance, was an excellent choice and was doing a good job. If there was a flaw in his appointment process could that not have been rectified by cabinet regularizing the appointment, or even reappointing him?
"Cut your coat according to your cloth" is a useful message for the government. Government has to tailor its ambitions to match available resources. It's time to manage expectations; time to tone down the rhetoric - and remember the law of diminishing returns. Stop flogging a dead horse.
This government has an extraordinarily onerous task. The nation sees its wellbeing synonymous with government's success. Don't let them ever have to make a choice between corruption and competence.
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