Islamabad : The Annual Confidential Report (ACR) is a performance evaluation system used by the Pakistani government to assess the performance of civil servants.
The ACR is prepared by the immediate supervisor of the civil servant and is submitted to the next level of supervision for review. The ACR contains a detailed assessment of the civil servant’s performance, including their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
The ACR system is an important tool for the Pakistani government to ensure that its civil servants are perfect, hardworking, and performing at a high level. However, it is highly believed that the authorities are the authority to declare shady and incompetent officers/officials of their department by issuing strong ACR in their favour. The ACR system is a tool of corruption and blackmail of the government and semi-government servants, which arranges a lot of slaves of government and bureaucrats but not the committed people to serve and protect the interest of the State.
It is widely believed that corrupt senior authorities can manipulate the ACR system to favour certain individuals or to punish those who do not comply with their demands. There have been numerous cases of corruption and blackmail associated with the ACR system in Pakistan. There are many examples of officers accused of blackmailing their subordinates into giving them bribes by threatening to give them poor ACRs. In other cases, government officials were accused of manipulating the ACR system to promote their relatives and friends.
The ACR system has both pros and cons. On the one hand, the ACR system is an important tool for the Pakistani government to ensure that its civil servants are performing at a high level. The ACR system can also be used to identify and promote talented civil servants. On the other hand, the ACR system is vulnerable to corruption and blackmail. Corrupt senior authorities can manipulate the ACR system to favour certain individuals or to punish those who do not comply with their demands. The ACR system can also be used to promote and protect unlawful government decisions.
The ACR system should be strengthened to make it more difficult to manipulate. This could involve making the ACR process more transparent and accountable. Corrupt officials who manipulate the ACR system should be punished severely. This will deter other officials from engaging in corrupt practices.
The retired bureaucrats believe in reviewing and renewing the ACR System, and advised that those Civil Servants who report corruption in the ACR system should be protected from retaliation. This could involve establishing a confidential hotline for civil servants to report corruption. The government should promote a culture of integrity in the civil service. This could involve providing training to civil servants on ethics and anti-corruption measures.
The ACR system can help to improve the performance of civil servants by providing them with feedback on their performance and identifying areas where they need to improve. The ACR system can help to increase transparency in the government by providing a systematic way to evaluate the performance of civil servants. While, on the other hand, the ACR system can help to hold civil servants accountable for their performance. The ACR system can help to ensure that civil servants are promoted and rewarded based on their performance, rather than on other factors such as nepotism or favouritism.
One of the most visible cons is that the ACR system is corrupt senior officials manipulate the system to favour certain individuals or to punish those who do not comply with their demands. This can lead to a situation where civil servants are forced to carry out unlawful orders in order to avoid receiving a poor ACR. It is important to note that the pros and cons of the ACR system are not mutually exclusive.
