ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the federal ministries to present brief reports on their quarterly performance, focusing on the efforts they have made to achieve goals set by him four months ago.

According to an official announcement on Friday, the ministries have been directed to present their performance reports to the federal cabinet within two weeks.

A source in Prime Minister Office told Dawn that in November last year the prime minister had given specific goals and targets to the ministries and now he wanted to be apprised on progress in this regard.

Four months ago, Prime Minister Khan had taken separate briefings from the ministers regarding performance of their ministries. “The prime minister desires that the process of evaluation should continue,” the source said.

Focus will be on efforts made by ministries to achieve targets set for them

The official announcement said letters had been sent to the ministries for preparation of their performance reports. The letters issued by the PM’s Secretary Azam Khan to all federal secretaries said: “Goal setting and performance review is the mainstay of a well-functioning government as these factors enable it to refocus on the goals and to make adjustments to achieve the envisioned objectives. In this regard, the prime minister had chaired a cabinet meeting in Nov 2018, whereby all federal secretaries had presented short and long term plans of their respective ministries/divisions.”

The letter said: “In order to evaluate the performance of the ministries/divisions in the context of goals and targets approved in the aforementioned meeting, the prime minister has been pleased to direct that quarterly performance review in a structured manner be conducted.”

Accordingly, it said, a draft format of the presentations had been attached for ready reference. The format will be followed by the secretaries while preparing their presentations.

The date and timing of the cabinet meeting where these presentations will be discussed will be communicated in due course.

The PM’s secretary further said that the presentations should be prepared in such a way that each could be read out in 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute question-answer session.

The ministries have been directed that emphasis should remain on the efforts made to achieve the goals/targets assigned to them and the issues that required resolution.

Inter-ministerial coordination, if required, must be made prior to presentation to avoid any duplication and long-term plans should also include implementation strategy.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2019