Alas, some good has been bestowed upon us by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to their latest report, the bureaucracy in the Islamic Republic is slow with over regulation. Both these factors are lethal for investments and business. As a child, I have a very poor memory of the IMF. In the decade of the sixties, I was only around ten years old when we had a house guest who was on his way to Rawalpindi and the new capital city. Dr Anwar Iqbal Qureshi, my father’s uncle, who had the unique distinction of being the first Indian to get a doctoral degree in Economics from Trinity College, stopped over. He had retired from the IMF, and with his international experience, he had been invited by the President for the position of the newly created ‘Economic Adviser’ to the Government of Pakistan (GOP).

On our dinner table, an interesting discussion took place that night between my father, the upright, anti-interest entrepreneur and the credit-based fast track economist. While my father kept insisting that the country would fall into a debt trap, Dr Qureshi insisted that it was the only way forward. After over six decades with an external debt burden of over $100 billion, my old man stands vindicated. While I still have respect for Dr Sahib, as he was an able individual, I am not sure whether he really believed in what he was practising. He then went on to write books on the ‘Islamic Interest Free Economic Model’ but the harm had been done. Last year, I received an email from Turkey where some researcher wanted to know about Dr Qureshi’s life and works; perhaps they are working on a new economic model.

Finally, even international sharks like the IMF have spoken against the colonial non-performing bureaucracy of the republic that has succeeded in deflecting all attempts at reforms. There have only been two brief periods in our chequered political history when executive abuses were contained. In the first decade (1947 to 1958), the elected representatives who operated from Karachi tried, before the capital was shifted by the first dictator. Then another elected government (1971 to 1977) was able to deliver some relief to the public; after that it has been downhill for the people of Pakistan. Today, almost all civilian institutions are non-functional and a complete burden on the meagre resources of the nation.

The first major attempt at reforming the bureaucracy was undertaken in the decade of sixties under the chairmanship of Justice A R Cornelius, who had started his career as a civil servant and then joined the legal cadre to become a judge. Public hearings were held at the YMCA Hall on Mall Road. Several recommendations were made to rationalise the powers of inherited colonial bureaucrats. Unfortunately, before the report was made public, two members of the civil services leaked the findings to create resistance; as a result, the report was shelved. Some of the important suggestions were included by Justice Fullerton in his report in the UK. Then in the interim 1972 Constitution, clause 216 was legislated to establish administrative accountability courts. In the permanent 1973 version, a toned-down clause 212 was included for this purpose.

In 1979, the entire clause was removed from the document. The toothless office of the ombudsman was created to contain executive abuses but it has failed to deliver as it too, is dominated by bureaucrats. Then in 2017, Information Commissions (IC) were established, which have produced some dents in the fortified and unbreachable barricades of the bureaucracy. Now, at least the public have been given access to hidden files and concealed foul play by the protected officialdom, but the IC has no executive authority.

During my tenure in Islamabad, I arrived 15 minutes before the official time (8am to 3pm). To the best of my knowledge, only one other officer, Dr Akram Sheikh, who was Deputy Chairman, the Planning Commission, arrived before 8am; almost no one else did. I then had to start a series of daily operations review meetings to ensure that am staff arrived on time.

My friend Brig Imran Malik (R), who was posted in the staff of Prime Minister (PM) Mir Zafarulla Jamali, revealed an interesting experience. One fine morning, the PM desired to show up to work on time. Brig Imran could not arrange transport as the chauffeurs had not arrived at the PM House. He finally managed to borrow the Suzuki car of the Security Officer and drove Jamali Sahib to the secretariat. The gates were shut, the day shift had not arrived. Finally, when the PM reached his office, the building was empty. When word got out, most officers called in sick. There is a total lack of seriousness in the entire bureaucratic set-up, on-time arrival is a basic ingredient of work seriousness, which is badly missing. All over the world, bureaucrats have been replaced by technocrats. In the land of the pure, several resolutions have been passed to post technocrats in seven technical ministries but that has not happened. The know-all generalists dominate.

Another fact must be highlighted to move the country forward. In my own personal experience, I have found the worst performance of the bureaucracy in the largest province, while the administrative set-up in Azad Jammu and Kashmir is most responsive to the public’s needs. This shortcoming must be taken seriously and addressed expeditiously before the situation gets out of hand. The Muzalam courts of Madina were the first to introduce administrative accountability, where the Caliph sat as the chief executive to provide relief to the common man. In the Indian Sub-continent there was the concept of Darbar, where the rulers deliberated on public complaints. The ‘Adal-e-Jahangari’ is well known, where the common citizen had access to the monarch. The British continued with the tradition of Darbars. Even the Governor’s House Lahore has a Darbar Hall where the public had access during the term of the ‘Awami Hukamut’ in the seventies. Accountability courts are the need of the hour, which calls for the restoration of Article 212 of the constitution. Once executive abuses are contained, the load of the cases in the judiciary will come down, thus paving the way for expeditious justice to the suffering litigants of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Indeed, the bureaucracy needs to be fixed without delay if relief to the public has to be ensured.

The writer is Ex-Chairman Pakistan Science Foundation, email: fmaliks@hotmail.com

The bureaucracy needs to be fixed without delay if relief to the public has to be ensured.