Federal govt inflation management gets highest score

Pildat survey

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) on Wednesday released federal score card on quality of governance according to which the quality of federal governance scored 51 percent in 2015-2016 with management of inflation getting the highest score of 87 percent and transparency receiving the lowest score of 21 percent. 

The federal governance score in 2015-2016 improved by 7 percentage points from the score of 44 percent in 2014-2015 federal governance assessment. The Pildat score card quality on quality of federal governance in the third year highlighted major governance developments during 2015-2016 through a comparative analysis of the performance against various parameters and sub-parameters between 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 to identify low and high performing indicators.

Improvements have been recorded in all the five pillars of governance including rule of law, management of the economy, social indicators, service delivery and administrative effectiveness.

Of the 25 sub-divisions of pillars of governance, above average performance was recorded in 19 parameters (foreign policy management, autonomy of regulatory bodies, clean, efficient and economic public procurements, immunisation of children, disaster preparedness and management, healthcare, management of population growth, environment sustainability, management of inflation, management of unemployment, investment friendliness, utility bills collection, electricity production and management, development programme, collection of taxes, agricultural development, national defence, peace, stability and order, anti-corruption) while below average performance was recorded in 6 parameters (use of technology for better governance, merit based recruitment and promotions, education, poverty alleviation, water resources development and management, transparency).

The most improvement observed in federal governance was in the management of inflation with a score of 88 percent. Improvements in the management of monetary policy and the global fall in oil prices resulted in a low average rate of inflation of 2.8 percent in 2015-2016.

The second highest score was observed in peace, stability and order (73 percent) owing to the increase in the number of insurgents/terrorists neutralised and third highest to healthcare (68 percent) due to decreasing infant and maternal mortality rates.

As the sub-parameter that demonstrated the highest improvement in Pildat’s assessment compared to the previous year’s scorecard, investment friendliness earned a score of 67 percent in 2015-2016 compared to the score of 27 percent in 2014-2015. This was due to an increase in the total amount of foreign direct investment in Pakistan rising by 38 percent from $922.9 million in 2014-2015 to $1,281 million in 2015-2016.

Transparency has consistently been recorded as the poorest performing aspect of federal governance. A score of 21 percent was assigned to transparency due to the continued absence of a progressive right to information legislation at the centre.

The objective behind Pildat's initiative on assessment of the quality of governance is to highlight key areas of strengths and potential areas requiring improvement in the quality of governance. The initiative is intended as a collaborative effort to enable the government and the public in making informed, fact-based assessment regarding governance at the centre. Pildat annually compiles the report after a year-long collection and analysis of data gathered from various ministries, divisions, international agencies and media.