Rethinking the government

The Prime Minister recently constituted a cabinet committee on institutional reforms. The committee is tasked to determine the size and composition of the secretariat and define modern public service structure for the federal government.

All governments talk about restructuring but they all end up expanding the government, obliging various constituencies, with little regard to what it means for future liabilities. Despite substantial reduction in mandate as part of the 18^th Amendment, the federal government has been expanding ever since. Although recurrent public expenditure in Pakistan (general government final consumption expenditure) is only slightly higher than the South Asian average of 11% of GDP, public investments (public sector gross fixed capital formation) remain dismally low (roughly half the South Asian average). Even this level of expenditure far exceeds our fiscal resources. Our revenue receipts are not even enough to pay for debt servicing, let alone to cover for debt repayment, running of the government or public investments. The government therefore needs to borrow more and more. The result is not only public investments hitting rock bottom, denying what we owe to the citizens, but also public debt hitting the roof, creating a claim on future generations.

If the government is serious this time, it needs to trim down its structure and then work towards a smarter government. The world’s largest economy, the United States, works with only 15 cabinet ministers. Singapore and Qatar have 16 and 13 ministers, respectively. If they can do it, perhaps we can too, with less than the 42 ministers that we presently have.

Trimming down the government in turn would need taking out the deadwood, introducing automation, and outsourcing whatever can be better managed by the private sector. And the process should start from the bottom, stripping down Class-IV or grade 1-4 positions — the lowest rung of the government, kept for janitors, peons, etc. These positions are often used to oblige political constituencies through recruitments, without any real output. Anyone who has ever visited a government office would know that the government does a very bad job in basic amenities like maintenance and janitorial services. Yet we choose to keep excessive support staff and pay them lucrative salaries and generous pensions year after year. Similarly, while the world is using technology solutions and apps to replace entire ministries, or at least most of their sections, we continue to believe in continuous increase in our ‘sanctioned strength’. Government data reveals that between 2009-10 and 2018-19, 47,000+ new positions were created only in grade 1, depicting a whopping 122% increase. In comparison, the positions for BPS 17-22 with 11,000+ new posts registered an increase of 44%.

Besides the need for serious trimming, there comes the question of how we can have a smarter government. It is insightful to look at how other governments are structured. India, for instance, has a host of special sector ministries on chemical and fertilisers, coal, food processing industries, steel, etc that have fared well for the country. India’s Ministry of Steel maintains an up-to-date dashboard on production, consumption, capacity utilisation and exports of various categories of steel. Moreover, in 2014, the government realised that the concept of planning commission had become outdated and scrapped it, replacing it by NITI Aayog, an economic policy think tank.

Some countries like the UAE have established ministries of future, to manage a host of future challenges. UAE also has a competitiveness authority that is helping the country in becoming an economic hub. Various countries have successfully experimented with some of these models and perhaps we should learn from them rather than starting afresh.

Let’s use this opportunity to rethink the government altogether and create a leaner, smarter and efficient edifice that is targeted towards serving citizens’ interests rather than using state as a patronage mechanism to serve political interests.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2020.

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