What ails the civil service?

Civil servants have reached a stage where they see benefit in being malleable than in putting across counterpoints

Over the years, questions have been raised in Pakistan about the working, efficacy and responsiveness of the civil service as a key state organ. It is perceived that the civil service is often used as a tool by the political leadership to further its own ends. It is not perceived as a neutral and autonomous institution and is considered an adjunct of the political leadership. It has to conform to the decisions of political leaders without questioning them or their intent. The matter does not end here. There is reward for the ‘doer’, who stands out amongst the rest. A ‘doer’ is someone who does not wait for a formal signal from the political leadership to go ahead with a certain decision; he is swayed by the political instincts of the powers that be and swings into action even without waiting for a formal cue from the leaders.
All over the world, the civil service is known for its role as a game-changer. A proactive and responsive civil service plays a distinct role as preserver of social order, provider of services and purveyor of growth and development. Singapore, to give an example, is one of the most competitive nations in the world. Its civil service is largely credited for the country’s excellence and competitiveness in various sectors. The role of the civil service in the city state is not merely confined to providing information for a policy option to the political leadership, but it is also required to perform a qualitative analysis of an issue before a policy decision is taken.
The question is: does our work culture give freedom of analysis to civil servants? Evidence in this regard is mixed: civil servants in Pakistan, by and large, have been relegated to the status of mere implementation machines. Agenda-setting and prioritisation, on balance, stays within the political domain, which is at times driven by grandiose visions. There is no harm in nurturing grand designs, but such ideas need to be weighed in terms of their opportunity cost. At times, there is a difficult choice between making a populist decision and the right decision. It is here that we require professional advice of the bureaucracy, as well as technical input. As agenda-setting is exclusively a political preserve, thinking minds having an inclination towards making independent judgments, are often nudged away to the sidelines, and a breed of ‘doers’ is brought to the centre stage. Merit, competence and the Weberian tradition of seniority give way to the 'virtues’ of familiarity and fealty. I am not questioning the competence of those who currently form the inner cordon of our ruling elite. The point I am making is that fealty takes over competence and the political ruling class starts drawing on a limited pool of people it can trust, and the presence of a large bureaucratic reservoir becomes of peripheral interest to it. A mix of poorly conceived priorities and a reliance on kinship widens the gap between those who govern and those who are governed, creating disconnect and administrative diseconomies within the bureaucratic apparatus. Tasks become person-specific rather than specific to the system. As a result, everybody ends up performing everyone else's job: you have a situation where a civil servant performs tasks not aligned with his job description.
It will, however, be unfair to put the entire blame at the doorsteps of our political decision-makers. Civil servants, over the years, have abdicated their responsibility and control freaks from the top have brought in such a dependency syndrome that they keep waiting for signals from the top before carrying out even their own basic functions. The other day, I was going through the joint investigation report on the Model Town firing incident. There were some disturbing allusions about the working of our system at the operational level. According to the report, when the situation got out of hand, the SP in-charge ordered the Elite Force to open fire at the “legs” of the people in the rioting crowd. The reply he got from the in-charge of the Elite Force was: “Hamaray banday itney trained nahi hain” (Our men are not trained well enough). This is indeed a startling revelation about the level of training and handling of firearms by a force, and that too the Elite Force, which had been raised for a specific purpose. Training of professionals has been lowest on the agenda, which is poor showing on part of the top bureaucracy. In Punjab, the political leadership had been favourably inclined towards meeting the budgetary requirements of the police. The question is: what stopped the Punjab police from setting apart a reasonable sum for its training needs? In the good old days, there were firing ranges for firearm practice, something that seems to have fallen into disuse.

Civil servants have now reached a stage where they see a lot of benefit in being malleable rather than in putting across a counterpoint or an advice, which may not go down well with the political leadership. The prime minister’s recent visit to the UN General Assembly session has been in the spotlight. A lot of questions were raised about the efficacy of the visit. More importantly, one wonders what kind of professional advice was tendered by the foreign office in this regard, especially on an occasion when the US was up on its feet to welcome the Indian prime minister. The UN General Assembly session is a lacklustre occasion. Therefore, the prime minister’s visit should have been a multipurpose one to leverage dividends. Did the foreign office put in earnest efforts to arrange meetings for the prime minister on the sidelines, and with what results? Were there any serious moves to arrange meetings with the US leadership to discuss regional issues in the wake of the US drawdown? Such visits are also occasions to establish a connect with the expatriates, but nothing to that effect was arranged, while Narendra Modi rode high like a rock star at the Madison Square Garden.
We live in an information age where every move of our ruling class, which includes both the political leadership and the civil bureaucracy, is under minute scrutiny. Members of this class have to justify and be open about every move they make. The more crucial role rests with the political leadership for making room for a model, which is sustainable and institutional. Above all, the political leadership needs to develop the habit of hearing 'no' from the bureaucracy, a daunting task indeed for both parties.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2014.

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