Prime Minister Imran Khan asked on Thursday the ministries to keep the country's national interests supreme and work on "out of the box solutions" to improve performance.

In his address at the certificate award ceremony for the top 10 best performing ministries and divisions, he said the resolution of public issues through effective policy-making and good governance was important.

The prime minister awarded certificates to the heads of the top 10 ministries and divisions on good performance and targets achieved.

Performance of ministries to be evaluated

In order of their performance, these include the Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of Industries and Production, National Security Division, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

The performance agreements were earlier signed between the Prime Minister’s Office and the federal ministries and divisions to achieve their respective targets.

The prime minister said no system could effectively function without the concept of reward and punishment.

“This is a great opportunity to encourage ministries to improve their performance for the benefit of people,” he said.

He said increasing exports, finding import substitution, and poverty alleviation were significant areas of national interest.

He mentioned that reforms had been made regarding the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that allowed the bureaucrats to take initiatives.

Khan said a quarterly review of the performance of ministries was a step to develop among them a sense of competition to give their best.

He said the government’s agenda was transformed into an actionable form through the performance agreement system.

He said 1,090 targets had been set by the ministries of which 424 would be completed this year, including 207 related to governance and 100 to infrastructure.