IN the heart of Vienna lies a flourishing Pakistani restaurant that caters to thousands of tourists and locals. The owner has credited much of the restaurant’s success to an enabling business environment. For instance, while his restaurant is regularly and rigorously inspected by government officials, there is no expectation of or demand for bribes. One wonders what motivates Austrian government functionaries to do their job effectively and honestly. Is there a lesson we could learn from international best practices?

An Institutional Reforms Cell (2018-2021) with Dr Ishrat Husain at its helm examined this question. It noted that, besides law and order, the essential role of any government is to create an enabling environment for commerce and industry. This requires an efficient civil service, physical infrastructure and rule of law. The IRC observed that in Pakistan’s case, the government is “weak and expansive”, cumbersome, centralised and inefficient.

Greater devolution of power, authority and resources to grassroots levels of government also contributes to the provision of efficient public service delivery, provided there is, inter alia, a competent bureaucracy. China’s stellar economic performance, for instance, is attributed to a ‘meritocratic bureaucracy’ and focused leadership. In our case, the IRC noted that civil servants were “badly motivated” and “unresponsive” to public needs. It formulated proposals for reform, which were only partly implemented. Several other attempts to reform the civil services have suffered a similar fate. Committees and task forces are formed, reports are finalised, but not implemented.

The last major civil service reform took place in 1973 when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto changed the categorisation of civil servants from Class I, II, III and IV to a new structure based on pay grades 1-22. The 1973 reforms sought to end the elite culture and false sense of superiority that civil servants seemed to have assumed. Elitist titles like the Civil Service of Pakistan were abolished, and instead, a Common Training Programme for 13 occupational groups was introduced.

Why has Pakistan not learned from examples abroad?

But these reforms had a downside. They withdrew constitutional guarantee for service security, leading to frequent transfers of civil servants on political grounds and undermining rule-based governance and policy continuity. Salaries were also compressed. Over time, the best and brightest started avoiding the civil service, and “mediocre and pliable” civil servants began to run government offices and institutions. Politicisation and mediocrity have severely impaired the government’s capacity to create a congenial business environment or render efficient public service delivery.

Gen Musharraf’s National Reconstruc­tion Bureau tinkered with some aspects of the civil service, ostensibly to ‘reconstruct’ local governments, but many of the measures became controversial and were later reversed. Clearly, a reform package should cover the “whole value chain” of human resource policies. The IRC rightly observed that recruitment methods and intake had outlived their utility; specialisation and technical expertise were marginalised, and performance had no link with remuneration. Internal accountability mechanisms had become weak.

To address this, the IRC proposed an ‘All-Pakistan National Executive Service’ for senior management positions, and the introduction of four specialised cadres under it for economic management, technical, social sector management, and general management. Another sound proposal was to reduce the hierarchy of each ministry and department from five to three — deputy secretary, joint secretary, secretary — in order to infuse efficiency.

Central to civil service reforms is the system of recruitment of candidates for the central superior services by the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC). The process of recruitment is long and tedious and benefits rote learners more than critical thinkers. In the CSS results for 2022, out of the 20,262 candidates who appeared in the written examination, only 393 passed.

The FPSC should consider open, transparent, technology-based methods, which are now being applied across the world, to recruit civil servants who are critical thinkers, tech-savvy and can relate to the growing needs of the people. Alternatively, the system of centralised recruitment through FPSC should be done away with, leaving recruitment, performance evaluation and promotion to each service to encourage specialisation and efficiency.

An honest, competent and efficient bureaucracy is the ‘steel structure’ that can help Pakistan secure a stable and prosperous future. Implementing civil service reforms should be a high priority if we want economic security and rule-based governance for our people.

The writer is a former foreign secretary and author of Diplomatic Footprints.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2023