Govt needs to devise digital procurement processes

LAHORE: The areas that impede development in Pakistan include the forced exclusion of women from work because of harassment fears, policy flaws that hurt learning at public schools, absence of a digitalised procurement process, and absence of incentives for tax collectors.

Preliminary research in these areas has been conducted by the International Growth Centre (IGC) in Punjab that could be applied in all the provinces so they could formulate policies for more inclusive and sustainable development. Policymakers would have to incorporate these researches into the implementation process to ensure better delivery.

Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey of 2007 revealed there were only 19 percent working women in urban centres of Punjab. Though another 26 percent women were ready to join the workforce, their families forbade them because of widespread harassment outside home.

Most of the women termed travelling as the foremost impediment in leaving home. Surveys by other creditable institutions also confirmed large scale harassment of working women in other cities, including Karachi. An IGC research team after interviewing Lahore women found that their decision to work was based partly on availability of harassment-free transport.

More women work in establishments that provide pick and drop facility. This might not be possible for small entrepreneurs. The policy makers should facilitate transport operators to devise a scheme for pick-and-drop by grouping women working for small scale employers. In areas where this might not be commercially viable, the state should provide some subsidy.

In order to overcome the low quality of education in public schools Faisal Bari, the director of the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) advocates public-private schools. It has been found that this problem was largely resolved if private actors partly out of their corporate social responsibility offer infrastructural and managerial solutions to public schools.

According to an IGC blog, in a survey conducted by Bari and his associate, they compared schools with and without partnerships, and found that partnered schools increased both net and female enrolment at a higher rate from 2009 to 2013.

Partnered school facilities scored higher in their infrastructure index, which measured available electricity, drinking water, boundary walls, main gates, playgrounds, and libraries.

Students at partnered schools also achieved better learning outcomes. In Sindh, head teachers reported feeling more supported in partnered schools, and a higher percentage of them were using best practices in pedagogy.

IGC also found that digitising public procurement leads to better use of government resources. In the process of public procurement, the Punjab government buys goods from the private sector to deliver public services.

The comprehensive development agenda, outlined in the Punjab Growth Strategy 2018, found that current procurement practices still rely heavily on manual, paper transactions that create delays and incentivise wasteful, often corrupt transactions.

An IGC researcher presented evidence at a conference in Lahore of substantially different prices being paid for the same goods and services purchased by the government. He posited that the inefficiencies of the procurement system have resulted in de-motivated government employees who were constrained by restrictive rules and sluggish auditing procedures.

He demonstrated that higher returns at lower cost could be achieved through a digitised procurement tracking system. Already, thousands of government employees use the Punjab Online Procurement System (POPS), which gathers data on procurement spending, rewards officials by ranking transactions for their value for money, and provides an accessible, centralised interface for managing procurement transactions.

The taxes collected in Punjab are 10-20 percent of potential tax revenues that could be collected. This is more or less the same in other provinces as well.  In order to achieve growth in provinces, the provincial government would have to devise plans to achieve actual tax potential in a transparent way and without coercion.

According to IGC, low public revenues are attributable, in part, to low-motivation by government employees to collect taxes for the government treasury, and disenfranchised citizens who do not see the benefits of paying them.

IGC researchers studied three different schemes that rewarded bonuses proportional to taxes collected were compared to a group that received a fixed salary.

It was found that revenues from all three schemes grew by at least 13 percent, relative to the control. The most effective incentive was a bonus proportional to taxes collected, which lead to a 46 percent growth in revenue. The increased revenues exceeded bonus payments to employees, making pay-for-performance a cost-effective solution. Preference of place of positing on performance also motivated tax collectors. Currently, postings were based largely on political connections.