Job well done

Sometimes, okay, scratch that, most times in this information age, new knowledge will appear out of nowhere and shake the way you have been looking at things; albeit, necessarily for that to happen one needs to be blessed with an open mind, and substance, to acknowledge mistaken views and opinions publicly. Unfortunately, in today's material world, these very qualities are rare because such qualities are perhaps perceived to be detrimental to the pursuit of money and power; after all the view is that public admission of having been ever wrong, even in relation to trivial matters, is the final nail in the coffin for any career path, more so in politics. Challenging popular opinion therefore is a path fraught with adversity.
For instance, take last week's article focused on the cons of privatisation, which emanated from a personal long-held view that the private sector is not a panacea for everything. Dissent from any similar generally held views, which by the way are not based upon self-ratiocination but have been drilled into the minds of the populace by design, is generally met with abject hostility. The question really is: has anyone ever done any analysis of what have we gained in the form of innovation and efficiency, from our own experience of privatisation? Perhaps privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) might even eliminate the burden of billions of rupees of subsidy from the budget, in my opinion it will not, but rest assured, that will not be the only consequence. But as usual I digress; the discussion today is on public sector employees and the inefficient services they provide.
Whilst the jury is still out on the age-old contest between honesty and competence within the public space, one thing is for sure, to borrow from elsewhere, the only time we recognise government employees is when they screw up, allegedly. To flip this, I for one have never considered what would happen to my quality of life, if there was no government and thousands of public sector employees. I never notice the electric supply company people doing their job right day after day, but get frantic about their incompetence when once in a while there is a breakdown in the middle of the night. And still I don't wait to think that there are government employees working at that hour to restore electricity so that I can go back to peaceful sleep.
Before moving on, a small clarification on a matter which recently was the subject of numerous debates, the unification of honesty and competence is perhaps, logically, improbable.
Reading Michael Lewis's latest endeavour, which sounds more like a spy thriller movie than a book, The Fifth Risk, it dawned upon me that while all of us are quick to count, and criticise, the number of ministers appointed by our political governments, none of us have any clue on what exactly are these ministries actually doing and who exactly are the beneficiaries of the mundane daily tasks that Section Officers buried deep in these ministries perform day upon day no end. Somewhere along the line they are responsible for provision of health, education and welfare coverage, perhaps not the best kind, to millions of deserving in this country; but do we ever stop to think about that?
Take the current war like situation with our eastern neighbour, which till recently was ruled by a bellicose despot. We were jubilant and quick to celebrate the notion that we had the ability to respond to any missile adventures from across the border in a 3 to 1 ratio. But how many of us gave any thought to who made it possible and how. Contrarily the defence budget is eyed with suspicion on the media and the political frontiers.
While Lewis' efforts are more a white paper on the current American government's omissions when it assumed office, the quote "People don't understand that a bungled transition becomes a bungled presidency" being case in point, there is a lot more to learn than that only. Albeit there is definitely that too! While I have a view that the first job of anyone assuming the highest political office in Pakistan is to find and place hundred righteous people on key positions, I now accept that I might have been ill-informed. A smooth transition perhaps is more complicated than a hundred righteous people; conversely, admittedly, a bungled transition can bring the government machinery to a halt.
But the biggest take away from the book for me was the holding of an annual award like ceremony, something like the Oscars, for all those people who manage the biggest risk portfolio of this country day in day out by simply doing their jobs. Thank you ladies and gentlemen employed by the State of Pakistan for a job well done.
(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected])