Irtiqa Zaidi’s ‘Negotiating the Power Corridors’ launched

Speakers term book ‘must-read’ for aspiring civil servants

ISLAMABAD: Veteran civil servant Irtiqa Zaidi on Wednesday launched her book — a compilation of interesting and highly educative autobiographical notes — with speakers terming it a ‘must –read’ for policy practitioners, politicians, civil servants and young aspirants of the Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS).

The book, “Negotiating the Power Corridors: Forty Challenging Years of Civil Service: Forty Challenging Years of Civil Service” has been published by the IPS Press – the publishing arm of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) — jointly with Fazlee's Book. A launch ceremony was organised in Islamabad on Wednesday.

In the book, Zaidi has included the message that civil servants should always be subservient to the state but not to the rulers, no matter how many challenges they face in discarding their duties in the best interest of the country and its people.

It negates the public impression that civil servants enjoy boundless powers and privileges and spend carefree attractive lives. Zaidi narrates the hard facts that a patriotic, hardworking and honest civil servant has to face tremendous challenges in the disposal of their duties.

IPS Executive President Khalid Rahman, Balochistan’s former chief secretary and former federal commerce secretary Dr Zafar Qadir and, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Executive Director Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Pakistan Customs Chief Collector (North)Asif Mahmood Jah, and IPS Fellow Dr Shahzad Iqbal Sham addressed the event.

Zaidi is the only civil servant from Balochistan who has worked in the provincial government and federal government for over 40 years. He has also served as a consultant in CIDA, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) before representing Pakistan as its focal person for the Asia Trust Fund of European Union at the International Trade Centre in Geneva.

He was also a project director for the World Bank-funded Trade and Transport Facilitation Project for seven years. Zaidi also headed the UNDP-funded Trade Initiative from Human Development Perspective Project.

As a senior member of Pakistan’s team, he participated in all eight rounds of negotiations held at Kabul and Islamabad during 2009-10 between Afghanistan and Pakistan on the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA).

Zaidi was elected executive director of UNCTAD’s Common Fund for Commodity. He was elected secretary-general of Society of Pakistan Economists and elected vice president of Netherlands Alumni Association of Pakistan.

He is an Overseas Fellow of Economics Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank. He has also represented the Government of Pakistan in several international seminars and conferences in 22 countries

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2020.