Institute of Business Administration Dean and Director and former central bank governor Dr Ishrat Husain has blamed politicians for the delay in introducing reforms as their benefits will not be visible before five years.
“Disconnect between the cost and benefit is the biggest hurdle in the way of reforms,” he said while speaking at the government-sponsored Pakistan Governance Forum here on Monday.
The Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform arranged the conference aimed at preparing a reform agenda.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given the task to Planning, Development and Reform Minister Ahsan Iqbal to recommend changes in the present system, but the directive came only after public agitation, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT), heaped pressure on the government.
The existing paradigm was based on patronage, bargaining and favouritism, Husain said. Earlier, he had headed the National Commission on Government Reforms, but its report was not implemented even after a lapse of several years.
If reforms were implemented, the ruling party would not be in a position to appoint its loyal officers on key administrative posts, he said and suggested that reforms were in the larger national interest and all political parties should lend their support to the process.
Husain opposed the present civil service system, which was based on superior and non-superior civil service concept. This system, he proposed, should be replaced with an equity-based civil service system. All ex-cadre officials were treated as second-class civil servants, he said.
Government rules, regulations and instructions had to be restructured and the redundant ones had to be weeded out, he said while pointing out that outdated and discretionary rules were the major cause of corruption.
Husain suggested that the federal government should limit its role to security, managing finances and developing infrastructure and should stay away from managing markets. “The taxation system is distorted in favour of the elite.”
He was of the view that despite the historical 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the benefits of devolution were not reaching the grass-roots level. Administrative powers had to be transferred to the smallest unit of the administration – the towns, he remarked.
He said the Council of Common Interests and the National Economic Council, two constitutional bodies on inter-governmental affairs, were not optimally utilised to address the issues related to policy formulation.
Parliament is not effectively playing its watchdog role over the executive, the judiciary is not living up to expectations, decision-making is slow and implementation of policies is virtually missing. These all, he said, were gradually eroding the government’s credibility.
Speaking at the conference, Planning and Reform Minister Ahsan Iqbal called the rivalries among civil services groups the biggest hurdle in the way of reforms.
He brushed aside criticism that politicians were the beneficiaries of the current rent-seeking system and said in fact the inter-group rivalries did not allow the implementation of civil service reforms.
If the District Management Group tried to undertake reforms, these were opposed by the police service and if the police service group wanted to do something, the judiciary shot down the proposals, he said. “The key to all reforms is civil service reforms.”
His remarks came following a four-month long sit-in staged in front of parliament by the PTI, which demanded electoral reforms and probe into alleged rigging in last year’s elections and lashed out at cronyism and corruption.
He said group identities had become more important to the civil servants than the larger national identity, therefore, the group-based system should be scrapped.
He reminded the audience that the present bureaucratic system was the remnant of the industrial era and had outlived its life. “The hierarchical bureaucratic system has become irrelevant.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2014.
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