Fix Governance Before It is Too Late

By -


At a time when the country is fighting for survival, our leaders are begging for aid.

The crying need of the hour is governance reform. The country is gasping for breath because of poor governance. Some symptoms:


  • There is a huge law and order problem. Not only is terrorism on the rise, kidnapping and violence has increased.
  • Qabza groups prey on property rights in collusion with the regulators and lawmakers
  • Resources continue to be misallocated in development projects because of corruption and mismanagement.
  • Public service delivery is wasteful and inefficient.
  • Energy is in short supply because of problems in power sector governance
  • Water is running out because the water sector continues to be poorly managed
  • Government policies are capricious and poorly thought out, lacking coherence and continuity.

At the heart of all these issues (and I am sure readers and can add more) lies public sector management. All Pakistanis will denounce public sector management and wish for it to change. For years we have blamed the politicians for these problems. But even with Martial law there has never been any improvement in governance. At the heart of the governance issue is the issue of incentives of the managers of the Civil Service.

Currently our civil service system has 4 major flaws

  • It is a closed non-meritocratic system ie., recruitment is only open to young people at junior grades and promotions are guaranteed and according to age and not performance
  • The National payscales attempt to put the entire government on one uniform scale with the federal government and the District Management Group on top vitiating an form of decentralization and autonomy of institutions.
  • Civil servant salaries especially at upper levels are largely in terms of non-transparent perks which are easy to abuse. This form of payment corrodes ethical standards and nurtures corruption.
  • The current pay system is also complicated by all manner of allowances. It is not inflation adjusted on a regular basis. Instead a series of allowances are used to adjust for inflation. 
  • Every few years a Pay Commission is put in place to deal with the allowances. The Pay Commission does the usual of consolidating a few allowances and giving a few increases leaving the system intact.

The system is antiquated and needs a complete overhaul if we are to meet the challenges we face today.

I wish we could have a serious national conversation on this.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comments on Zubair Iqbal’s “PAKISTAN’S CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS—AN IMPERFECT STORM"

By -
Nice piece by Zubair! It is typical of most economic writing (other examples are Ashfaq and Meekal) in Pakistan which has now been conditioned to think “macro-first” ignoring the underlying micro and institutional problems. Written in typical IMF fashion giving primacy to macroeconomics assuming that it is independent o political economy, institutions and governance. For example “It has become fashionable to trace the current economic malady to “wrong” growth strategy of the past 60 years. This is neither meaningful nor helpful in understanding the current policy imperatives. Yes, there has been a secular weakening of institutions but that is not an excuse for inappropriate policies. ???” This is what Krugman calls the dark age of macroeconomics. Failure of underlying institutions and lack of policymaking capacity can only manifest itself through poor policy choices. Add to that the deliberate attempt by the powers that be to destroy policymaking capacity (case in point T
Read more

The insanity of Our Economic Policy

By -
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Einstein Pakistan is an IMF addict: we have had 12-13 IMF programs in the last 30 years and have spent more than 22 years in a program (more if you count program monitoring). So, what will change with another program? Will both Pakistan and IMF repeat the past and prove insanity as in Einstein’s maxim.  IMF gave us a clean bill of health about 2 years ago, yet we are in another BOP crisis. You can see the exchange rate collapsing. Will the doctor repeat the old medicine?   While policy, IMF and our policy remain engaged in a dismal dance, the economy beyond the control of the MOF chugs along creating a middle class.  People are largely better off despite the shenanigans of the trio (MOF, IMF and pundits). People have worked hard to build a life for themselves whether through migration or some trading and even informal work at home.  But then the trio (IMF, MOF and our economists) call t
Read more

Imperial Democracy

By -
Typically, ‘elected’ dynastic governments start to unravel by their third year thanks to a combination of incompetence and greed. It is then that the rumour of a technocratic setup starts and politicians start to fan it. Recently, government officials came out with statements to the effect that the constitution does not allow for a technocratic setup and that there is no room for technocrats in Pakistan. The issue of technocrats really needs careful analysis here. Why is there a demand for technocracy? People repeatedly see that elected governments are not delivering governance and good public service. Instead they slip into whimsical, ‘kitchen cabinet’ government style-where an inner circle of the unelected starts to take arbitrary decisions. The prime minister wants to run the country in imperial fashion and ministers close to him act like imperial lords by passing all laws. Rumours of corruption grow large. Dynastic ambitions reveal themselves in children being thrown into dec
Read more