His opponents in the assembly and in government point out that institutional procedures are bypassed in the decision-making process. They say the chief minister, in a bid to stamp his personal seal, excludes people from the decision-making process. Even members of his cabinet, which is all PML-N, privately complain that they are not consulted on matters concerning their own departments. Cabinet meetings are few and far between and bereft of meaningful discussion. They are usually convened to get the collective nod of the ministers required to put the issue on the floor of the assembly.
Insiders say rather than routing the important paperwork through the chief secretary and the departments, the chief minister knows only one man, one window and one route: his principal secretary. PPP ministers who were part of the provincial cabinet till a few months ago confirm this.
“The province is being run on pieces of white paper written on with pencil. This is how orders are passed from the chief minister’s desk to his principal secretary, who in turn passes them on to the officer concerned,” said one former PPP minister.
This kind of talk becomes even more believable when one sees the treatment dished out to MPAs by the principal secretary in the corridors of the assembly building.
The usual issue is quorum, and as soon as the quorum breaks, the PS starts herding the flock with a commanding voice.
Opposition leader Raja Riaz pointed out once again yesterday that the chief minister seldom sets foot on the floor of the house. Ever since this Raja from Faisalabad left the cabinet, he has developed hawk eyes that follow every move the chief minister makes. He seemed to have been in a deep slumber for the first three years of the Punjab government.
On Tuesday the issue was again the CM’s absence from the House. Since April 2008, when this House was born, the Leader of the House has joined his fellow legislators only 42 times in the 285 days that the assembly has met.
The chief executive of a province as vast and as dense as Punjab has many pressing engagements, but the provincial assembly is the base where democracy rests. It certainly deserves better treatment. If an important decision has to be made, this should be the forum to address it in. If the PML-N legislators are to become strong agents of democracy, they need to be given more power than the right to queue up in front of the principal secretary’s office with supplications from their constituencies.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 14th, 2011.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1714024018-0/ModiLara-(1)1714024018-0-270x192.webp)
There is no other management approach in today's world but to work in a harmonized environment for a team effort to achive collective goals. The CM, though, is doing great effort trying to confront and solve the problems, it should have been left for the team to handle the day to day affairs. The CM certainly lacks the space he would need to sit back to understand, realise and review in order to improve the affairs of his administration.