Presence of senior bureaucrats at NA session a rare site

View from the Gallery 

ISLAMABAD: Gone are the days when top-notch bureaucrats used to be dutifully present at the back end to help and assist ministers during parliament’s proceedings and come up with valuable suggestions, advices, required facts and figures. Not anymore. These are days when majority of the ministers, legislators themselves are, habitually or otherwise, absent from parliamentary proceedings – except on special occasions -- and back benchers can only complain that bureaucrats don’t show them the required courtesy and meet them in their offices. Or even return their occasional telephonic calls. 

Presence of senior bureaucrats during proceedings is for sure a rare site these days as things are literally taken for granted by all the stakeholders of the system. But then, this is a new normal, anyways. Safdar, son-in-law of the premier, seemed furious as he rose to speak on the issue Friday amidst desk thumping from ruling party and opposition legislators, alike. 

Safdar, these days, is center of attention of ruling party and allies as he oversees massive developmental funds allocated to the individual legislators. But the lethargic and red-tapeism tools of bureaucracy is making him jittery as fellow legislators pile up complaints, day in day out. But then he has to put up a brave face, as lack of authority doesn’t send a good message across. Understandably, for everyone – Maulana Fazlur Rahman to Mahmood Achakzai – son in law of the premier with such a development fund muscle, is definitely important. 

Seeing himself in such a demand, Safdar tried to lead from the front to complain against the general trend in the bureaucracy to ignore, parliamentary proceedings, and legislators, too. He could recall the good old days when reputed senior bureaucrats like Anwar Zahid, Saeed Mehdi used to attend Parliament’s proceedings, take notes, and their subordinates were all the time present for back end support. For a change, he wished premier’s principal secretary should also grace the house, but couldn’t predict if it could be realized. This is not a familiar sight in the present day parliament. 

Here supposedly powerful parliamentary committees and legislators feel privileged to come across, seek time and meet senior bureaucrats. The good old days when senior bureaucrats used to line up in the galleries to take notes and assist ministers is a memory of the past. On this day, prompted by vocal back benchers like Najaf Abbas Siyal and rest, Safdar used all the political rhetoric and seemed unstoppable as he demanded formation of a committee of both the houses to vet ACRs of the bureaucrats. 

And then, the same could be sent to the promotion boards, and finally the prime minister for final decision making. Safdar tried to pressurize the deputy speaker reminding him of the power he has to issue such a ruling. But it was not to be. So sudden was the onslaught from Safdar and companions that Abbasi looked for rescue. And who else could come as a savior other than the easy-going, relaxed parliamentary affairs minister, Sheikh Aftab. 

Promptly, Deputy Speaker Mr Abbasi and minister Sheikh Aftab teamed up effectively to divert and cool down the rising emotions. Aftab even recalled and reminded members of the last letter written by him to ministries, federal secretaries for presence of senior bureaucrats at parliamentary proceedings. But to what end? No one cares, literally. But as we out the whole thing into perspective, we end up realizing that the major part of the problem lies with the legislators-ministers. 

Primarily, because most of the legislators – across the treasury-opposition divide – don’t take interest in legislation and proceedings. And most ministers don’t like to turn up in the two houses, except on special occasions. Bureaucracy follows suit. This was exactly the scene at the National Assembly on the first day of its November proceedings. 

Three ministers –Abdul Qadir Baloch, Sheikh Aftab and Abid Sher – were there as a token presence from ministerial bandwagon. The rest were having good time, away from the parliament after a full day of joint sitting activity at the parliament Thursday as the Turkish president delivered a speech on Thursday. Today was another day. In the mid of Friday’s proceedings one could see the whole opposition-treasury front to second-third tier in an empty state. 

Literally 2-3 ministers, 20-25 members of treasury and allies, 5-6 MQM and 6-7 PPP legislators seated till the end of the proceedings. The PTI walas, as we know, have boycotted the parliament for a long haul, and ‘busy’ these days in collection of Panama papers related evidence. Google and other internet search engines must be handy. Hope Hamid Khan, Babar Awan, Naeemul Haq won’t mind as long as they are able to pile up loads of such evidence against the Sharifs, even if it is downloaded from internet and printed from the finest of portable printers. 

So with PTI away, rest of their treasury backbencher colleagues could only fume in anger till end of the seemingly, hushed up proceedings for Friday. For this day, loads of complaints against federal and provincial bureaucracy united legislators from treasury and opposition in a rare show of unanimity on a single issue in the National Assembly. But the exercise was short lived, despite all the rhetoric and anger. Deputy speaker and Sheikh Aftab had a sigh of relief as the proceedings were shortened. At the end of the day, seeing how the issue climaxed was just another rude reminder that it could not become a field day for the bureaucracy as one would have thought naively, anyways. Good days will come. Perhaps!