EDITORIAL: It’s no small endorsement of the SIFC’s (Special Investment Facilitation Council’s) credibility that its straightforward, no-nonsense approach is also helping regain the confidence of the usually, often deliberately, paralysed civil service.
A welcome bit of news seems to suggest that the trend of political parties in power getting NAB (National Accountability Bureau) to treat bureaucrats as cannon fodder in their own bigger rivalries – which had come to be regarded as normal over time – may finally be reversing.
There’s already a buzz about NAB’s “fear factor” receding, emboldening senior bureaucrats into signing files when needed; without having to look over their shoulder for the accountability watchdog to show up with trumped up charges which do much damage to their careers and reputations even if they go away when the government changes once again.
It’s important to get a few things straight. The civil service, by design, is hardly the definition of efficiency in the best of times. It is an oversized, over-privileged, outdated behemoth that is procedure-driven instead of output-driven – the subject of another debate – but when you add that “fear factor” and stun secretaries into taking no action at all, it becomes an even bigger burden on the state.
Some people are crediting the military’s presence in the SIFC for some major progress on the economic front, which of course has raised its own share of controversy, yet it cannot be denied that the Council has indeed started solving some lingering problems like the NFC (National Finance Commission) deadlock, centre-province water tax dispute, etc. And if it has also helped free the service from NAB’s clutches, then it has one more feather in its cap.
Of course it’s not just the SIFC that the civil service is appreciating. The government’s assurances, right from the very top, and long-due changes in NAB’s policies are the real drivers of this change; with the establishment’s presence in SIFC providing perfect oversight, it would seem. Regardless, it’s important that the bureaucracy has started functioning again. The last few years of unprecedented political bitterness took a heavy toll on the already heavily compromised administrative services; so the forward march is important.
Hopefully, the government also realises this is as good a time as any to initiate those civil service reforms that everybody has been talking about for decades. Usually, the service itself is the biggest stumbling block. But if they continue to resist reforms, and are only interested in containing NAB so they can be free to go back to their old, inefficient ways once again, then they are just not appreciating the fragility of the present moment.
There’s no doubt that it’s already a small miracle if the sword of NAB has stopped hanging over the service. Now we need the much bigger miracle of turning the deadweight bureaucracy into a modern, much more efficient, administrative machinery. Otherwise, there’s only a victory for civil servants in defanging NAB, not for the country. The situation demands much more; and it is the government’s duty to deliver it.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024