Underperforming departments drain state resources

If two people can finish a job in a given time frame, having more people work on the same task will gradually lower the overall productivity of the organization. In Punjab, a similar situation is at play with several unnecessary state departments only burning taxpayers’ money.

The Punjab government has decided to restructure government departments after identifying institutions that were either running in losses or were doing the same work separately. It is believed that the move will improve governance and reduce the provincial budget.

In this regard, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz established a 14-member high-level restructuring committee, tasked with preparing recommendations within 60 days. Senior Provincial Minister Maryam Aurangzeb was appointed as the Chairperson of the committee, with the Finance Minister and Law Minister included among its members.

However, sources have revealed that due to the committee's sluggish pace, progress on the endeavour has not met the Chief Minister's expectations, with only a few departments restructured and others still in consideration. As of now, the committee has held just two meetings for reviewing the performance of various departments.

According to sources of the Express Tribune, there are a total of 41 government departments operating in Punjab, where more than Rs1400 billion are spent annually on government employees. Various proposals are under consideration for merging underperforming government departments, however, so far, only one merger has been achieved. The Food, Industry & Commerce, and Agriculture departments were reviewed and merged to establish a new department, Price Control & Commodities Management.

In the meanwhile, proposals to merge other departments remain pending. These include Bait-ul-Mal, Auqaf and Religious Affairs, and Zakat and Ushr. Similarly, the Education and Health departments can also be merged. Apart from this, mergers of other departments, which are bearing double expenses by appointing double secretaries, are also under consideration.

Dr Kaiser Bengali, an economist, was of the opinion that once a government department had fulfilled its role it should be abolished however, this rarely happened since the department was dragged along unnecessarily, allowing the state’s financial burden to grow.

“Ideally, government departments should be reviewed every ten years so that their activities can be continued or abolished based on their effectiveness. However, there is no such practice in our federation and provinces to review government departments and restructure or abolish them when they are no longer needed.  Furthermore, it is often the case that two departments are doing the same kind of work therefore, it is best to merge them and save money,” noted Dr Bengali.

While the consolidation of powers from various institutions into one department aims to streamline operations, sources from the Finance Department have claimed that the committee's recommendations will lead to the closure of underperforming and loss-making institutions by the new fiscal year, reducing the financial burden in Punjab.

When inquired about the government’s progress in the restructuring of departments and the expected savings, Punjab’s Finance Minister Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman stated that work was ongoing in departments like Education, Health, and Labour. “It is estimated that the results of the restructuring will entail annual savings amounting to Rs8 to 10 billion. Furthermore, reassigning surplus employees, numbering in thousands, to other departments will utilize their labour efficiently,” commented Shuja-ur-Rehman.

When contacted, the Finance Minister refused to comment on the matter since work was still ongoing and underperforming departments were in the process of being merged with other departments.