In the last part of his eight-part series titled 'PTI govt's 100-day plan' of articles, this writer seeks to draw PTI government's attention towards the dire need for restructuring the federal government executive structure and the urgency to audit the trillions of rupees of state assets managed by state functionaries for the last seven decades. The assets which are now redundant are required to be dissolved and the relevant ones are restructured and made meaningful in terms of much-needed revenue generation and support to the social sector.
Pakistan has around 34 federal ministries governed by an equal number of federal ministers and a humongous team of ministers of state, federal secretaries, multiple additional-joint and deputy secretaries, section officers, personal secretaries and protocol officers. In addition to these are special assistants and advisers with the rank and privilege of the federal or state minister. The four provinces of Pakistan have a similar executive structure to manage provincial matters.
Under the domain of federal ministry, operate over 400 autonomous bodies and corporations inclusive of business enterprises in the public sector, utility companies, educational institutions, hospitals, regulators, research and development centres in field of agriculture, industry, health sciences and information technology.
The number of 34 federal ministries in Pakistan is not consistent with the financial strength and economy of the nation which has a nominal GDP of $ 313.1 billion (2017) being the 42nd largest in the world. The functions of a number of federal ministries are overlapping, superfluous and in conflict; hence counterproductive, whereas the deliverables of some ministries are negligible. After the 18th Amendment, a number of functions under the federal government are superfluous and redundant having been transferred to the provinces. The same is not correspondingly reflected in the rationalization of human and material resources at the federal ministries and the departments operative under it.
Many organisations under the federal ministries possess huge human and material resources of which much is dormant. A reference in question is the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) which has the mandate to launch Pakistan's science policy planning and coordination, scientific research, development and technology-driven programmes and projects aimed at industrial and economic development of the country. The ministry is not doing any of these.
Under MoST operate three lead entities; namely, National Research Laboratories, National Research Councils and National Research Institutes. Some of these institutions date back to early 50s.
Under National Research Laboratories are 13 institutions, each supposedly engaged in its area of research works such as fuel, metallurgy, marine, precision engineering, analytical research, vacuum technology, food irradiation and charge accelerator.
Under National Research Councils are 15 large autonomous institutions such as Council for Works & Housing Research (CWHR), National Institute of Electronics (NIE), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Pakistan Council for Renewable Energy Technology (PCRET), Pakistan Council for Science & Technology (PCST), Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Pakistan Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (PCSIR), Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), Pakistan Scientific & Technology Information Centre (PASTIC), Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH), Pakistan Standards & Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), STEDEC Technology Commercial Corporation of Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd, and National Commission on Nano-Science & Technology (NCNST).
Under National Research Institutes (NRI) are universities and research institutes affiliated with Universities operating in the field of Information Technology, Nuclear Science, Physics & Chemistry, Engineering, Agriculture and Biology, Space and Planetary and other fields. Prominent are COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, National University of Science & Technology (NUST), Pakistan Institute if Theoretical Physics at Lahore University of Engineering & Technology, Research Institute of Chemistry at Karachi University and others. In total, there are 18 such institutions.
The urgency for achieving excellence in Science & Technology for the growth of the newborn nation was recognized in the early years of Pakistan. In 1950, the office of Science Adviser was created by the then Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was appointed as the first Science Adviser.
The concept was to achieve excellence in research and development to support local industry in producing innovative products based on indigenous manpower, technology and material and to support educational institutions in specialized fields and also to support the defense industry of Pakistan so as to speed up Pakistan's economic growth and achieve self-sufficiency.
The institutes stated above have on their roll a significant number of scientists, professors, research analysts, engineers and other experts. Each institute is equipped with research software and hardware and housed in spacious facilities located in landmark areas of Pakistan.
There is a need to carry out a fair analysis of the return to the nation in real terms on the large investment that has been made to set up these institutions and more importantly, to sustain them - all out of public money. Their deliverables to the industry of Pakistan, academia and defense industry need to be closely evaluated.
Some of the institutions have achieved a remarkable recognition and have delivered well. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology is one of them. Established in 1998 as a public research university in Pakistan it is ranked among top 250 Asian universities. It has over 5,000 students on its main Islamabad campus and over 30,000 more students in its six satellite campuses. The university has since its inception produced around 900 PhDs.
National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) is another flag carrier. As of 2016, it has over 15,000 students and is ranked by QS World Rankings as among the leading 50 universities under the age of 50 and among top 500 universities of the world.
There are few other great exceptions. But majority of the 47 institutes are not delivering much to the nation. There is overlapping of functions among the entities under MoST and with other government institutions pursuing nearly similar objectives.
Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) was established in 1953 for the development of scientific and technical research and R&D with a focus to support the industry of Pakistan. PCSIR hosts 150 officers & technical staff including seven directors at its head office and a top team of 681 scientists, PhDs, engineers and technologists and a support team of 1,656 technical and skilled staff and 178 administrative staff based at PCSIR's well-equipped and spacious facilities all over the country. Their deliverables to the industry of the country constitute a question mark? The research institutes of the government, the industry and academic institutions, by and large, work in isolation making no meaningful contribution to the greater objective of achieving the desired results.
There is a need to rationalize the resources available with the institutes of MoST and align them well with the industry and academia and do away with whatever is redundant.
The following are some of the required tasks and realistic deliverables which can be derived from these public assets held by the government:
- Due diligence of the structure, relevance and value addition of each of the federal ministry be conducted to make them lean, efficient, cost effective and with defined deliverable.
- Superfluous ministries, with no value addition, should be abolished & their limited functions be amalgamated with other relevant ministry with due consideration that with the 18th amendment a number of federal subjects have been transferred to provinces.
- Ministries with similar category of functions should be amalgamated like ministry of water & power and petroleum amalgamated as the ministry of energy. Likewise, ministry of railways and ministry of ports & shipping can be considered to be transformed into Ministry of Mobility while Ministry of Science and Technology & Ministry of IT may be transformed into "Ministry of Technology.
- Public Sector Business Entities, with profit & loss responsibilities, should be moved out of the control of the ministries which offer no value addition and are a deterrent to the entrepreneurship regime of these entities.
- A significant wealth of Pakistan's talent of human resources, infrastructure and technology is embedded in various Ministries - underutilized and rusting. All of this should be extracted out and put to better use.
- Public sector business enterprises extracted out of all ministries be governed as autonomous business enterprises by a professionally managed board of directors under the ambit of SECP and listed with the stock exchange wherever possible.
- Many other enterprises like Pakistan Railways, Ports and Shipping and similar giants are inherently business enterprises which in most parts of the world are operated as business ventures with stake holders from the private sector or public-private partnership. Also, these enterprises too need to be f freed from the government's yoke.
- Country's regulators should be insulated against the influence of the ministries and their independence and functions restored as bestowed on them by the constitution of Pakistan. Pakistan is experiencing severe economic challenges. To keep on moving with business as usual is an ugly option.
(The writer is former President of Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce & Industry)
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