Flying solo: Sindh eager to live on its own hump

The Sindh government appears to be engaged in improving its provincial service structure through significant reforms in the administrative system, in a bid to reduce its dependency on the federal bureaucracy.

Under its planned changes, a provincial services group is to be created and titled Sindh Administrative Service, which will operate on the same lines as the centre’s Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS).

This new provincial service group will include different cadres of provincial services, including the provincial police cadre which will be formed to match the federal counterpart’s modus operandi.

These reforms in provincial service were planned after the issue of transfer and posting of the federal government’s officers from Sindh had turned into a bone of contention between the two governments.

The federal government had transferred officers of federal service groups, PAS and PSP of grades 19 and 20 posted in the province without consent of the Sindh government.

This irked the provincial government of the Pakistan People’s Party, which refused to relieve the federal officers, sparking an administrative crisis in the bureaucracy. Federal government officers of PAS and PSP are routinely stationed in each province. Prior to the controversy, the provincial government had been complaining about a shortage of officers of grades 19 and 20 posted by the federal government in the province.

There were many posts of grade 19 and 20 vacant in Sindh due to a shortage of officers belonging to federal services. The situation compelled the provincial government to assign dual charges of different administrative departments to some officers of higher grades.

However, this act of the provincial government had also become controversial due to allegations of favoritism in assigning dual charges. According to official sources, the proposed Sindh Administrative Service will also comprise of different service cadres of the provincial government’s officers working in different departments.

These include the Police Cadre, Education Management, Transport and Urban Planning, Local Authorities, Secretariat cadre, and Sindh Taxation Service cadre, which will be implemented in the province after formal approval of the Sindh Cabinet.

The Sindh government has already established a Training Management and Research Wing at the provincial level. It is the first training academy set up by a provincial government in the country to start mandatory classes of Mid-Career Management Course (MCMC) and Senior Management Course (SMC) for the provincial bureaucracy.

Previously the provincial officers were sent to federal government academies like the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) for these qualifications.

According to Sindh Minister for Local Governments Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, the provincial government was empowered to establish its separate services group under article 240 of the Constitution. He said that it was needed of the hour to develop and strengthen the provincial administrative system. These reforms, the minister believes will improve the working of the provincial bureaucracy.

“It will be in the overall interest of the province”, he said, adding that they hope that the people of Sindh will benefit from these changes. Addressing the matter, a spokesperson of the All Pakistan Provincial Civil Services Association, Tarik Malik said that the provincial governments have the constitutional right to establish their own services groups.

He went to say that civil services of the federal government, like the Pakistan Administrative Service, have still no constitutional cover. “These are created through an agreement instead of the Constitution or any Act passed by the Parliament,” he added. It is pertinent to mention here that the Sindh government was also facing a shortage of officers due to the non-functioning of the Sindh Public Service Commission.

The functioning of the SPSC remained suspended for around a year under an order of the Sindh High Court. Around 5,000 posts of grade 17 were vacant in provincial government due to the suspension of the SPSC, while some 100 posts of grade 18 were also unfilled for the same reason.

Shortage of officials Moreover, official data compiled by the Sindh Services and General Administration Department reveals that the Health department has a shortage of at least 10 officers of grade-18. Similarly, the Board of Revenue has a shortage of nine officers of the same grade.

Enquiries and anti-corruption, Information Technology, Women Development Department, and Food department each have seven posts vacant of grade 18 officers. Departments including Inter-Provincial Coordination, Culture and Tourism, Works and Tourism, Irrigation and Coal and Energy Department each have a shortage of five officers of the same grade. Whereas, the departments of Agriculture, College Education, Home, Finance, Environment and Cooperatives each have a shortage of three grade 18 officers.