Airing of grievances: Technocrats vent frustration with civil service
Planning Commission, UNDP explores economic growth strategies.
ISLAMABAD:
Facing stiff resistance from the bureaucracy to their economic reforms agenda, Pakistan’s leading serving and retired technocrats called for massive civil service reform, speaking in very plain words and even airing a documentary about the inefficiencies of bureaucratic red tape.
“The bureaucrats lack capacity, competence, courage and compassion,” said Ishrat Hussain, a macroeconomist and former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. “[In the civil service,] donkeys and horses are all treated equally, with no regard for past performance.”
Hussain was speaking alongside Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Nadeemul Haq and 500 delegates –including economists, public policy experts, parliamentarians and business leaders – from across the country and even other countries at a two-day conference organised by the commission jointly with the United Nations Development Programme on a national economic growth strategy.
Haq devoted a significant portion of his speech on the need for civil service reforms, which comes as no surprise since he is one of the leading proponents of taking away the bureaucracy’s power to create hurdles in policy-making and implementation. Haq’s frustration with the civil service stems from their successful resistance to several initiatives that he had backed, including energy sector reforms and the beginning of monetisation of senior civil servants’ perks.
“The civil service controls everything from the energy sector to the legal system of the country and the entire system has been plagued with non-transparent perks,” he added. According to the Planning Commission’s analysis, a grade 22 officer – the highest rank in the civil service – costs taxpayers Rs600,000 per month in compensation, not including the costs of other implied benefits.
The organisers also aired a documentary about the bureaucracy’s approach towards problem solving, appropriately titled: “Please use the next door”.
Yet despite the apparently strident criticism of the bureaucracy itself, the technocrats seemed to hesitate from ascribing ideological reasons for their own policy recommendations.
While calling for a reduction in the government’s economic footprint, for instance, the planning commission’s deputy chairman said that his agenda was not that of a free-marketeer – a label with which he has been disparaged inside the civil service –
but instead in support of “good government and a good private sector.” Speakers from Malaysia said that their country had once faced similar challenges to the ones that Pakistan faces today and were eventually able to overcome then. Other foreign experts encouraged Pakistanis to be more optimistic and determined about their future.
“Pakistan needs to have the determination to change,” said Philip Auerswald, a public policy professor at George Mason University in the United States. “The country is number one in the world in terms of offering opportunities for investment but what it needs to create opportunities for future.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 14th, 2011.
Facing stiff resistance from the bureaucracy to their economic reforms agenda, Pakistan’s leading serving and retired technocrats called for massive civil service reform, speaking in very plain words and even airing a documentary about the inefficiencies of bureaucratic red tape.
“The bureaucrats lack capacity, competence, courage and compassion,” said Ishrat Hussain, a macroeconomist and former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. “[In the civil service,] donkeys and horses are all treated equally, with no regard for past performance.”
Hussain was speaking alongside Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Nadeemul Haq and 500 delegates –including economists, public policy experts, parliamentarians and business leaders – from across the country and even other countries at a two-day conference organised by the commission jointly with the United Nations Development Programme on a national economic growth strategy.
Haq devoted a significant portion of his speech on the need for civil service reforms, which comes as no surprise since he is one of the leading proponents of taking away the bureaucracy’s power to create hurdles in policy-making and implementation. Haq’s frustration with the civil service stems from their successful resistance to several initiatives that he had backed, including energy sector reforms and the beginning of monetisation of senior civil servants’ perks.
“The civil service controls everything from the energy sector to the legal system of the country and the entire system has been plagued with non-transparent perks,” he added. According to the Planning Commission’s analysis, a grade 22 officer – the highest rank in the civil service – costs taxpayers Rs600,000 per month in compensation, not including the costs of other implied benefits.
The organisers also aired a documentary about the bureaucracy’s approach towards problem solving, appropriately titled: “Please use the next door”.
Yet despite the apparently strident criticism of the bureaucracy itself, the technocrats seemed to hesitate from ascribing ideological reasons for their own policy recommendations.
While calling for a reduction in the government’s economic footprint, for instance, the planning commission’s deputy chairman said that his agenda was not that of a free-marketeer – a label with which he has been disparaged inside the civil service –
but instead in support of “good government and a good private sector.” Speakers from Malaysia said that their country had once faced similar challenges to the ones that Pakistan faces today and were eventually able to overcome then. Other foreign experts encouraged Pakistanis to be more optimistic and determined about their future.
“Pakistan needs to have the determination to change,” said Philip Auerswald, a public policy professor at George Mason University in the United States. “The country is number one in the world in terms of offering opportunities for investment but what it needs to create opportunities for future.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 14th, 2011.