Government to launch training programme for bureaucrats

ISLAMABAD: After failure of multimillion dollar World Bank funded capacity-building projects for top bureaucrats in Pakistan during the last decade, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has decided to launch another training programme for senior and middle level officers in reputed international institutions with estimated cost of Rs500 million in the upcoming budget 2018-19.

This project has been made part of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for next budget 2018-19 and the government proposed allocation of Rs500 million for providing training in reputed international institutions such as Harvard and others. “We have planned for providing training to hundreds of officers of grades 19, 20, 21 and 22 so that they could serve the country for longer period,” said official sources while talking to The News here on Sunday.

According to official summary for National Economic Council (NEC) which is scheduled to meet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday, the capacity issue in civil service needs attention; therefore, to resolve this issue, a programme costing Rs500 million is being initiated for training of seniors and middle level officers in international institutions of repute.

Without granting constitutional guarantees and independence, the bureaucracy cannot perform effectively. Just last week, one senior federal minister, along with his staff, barged into office of one officer and pressurised him to release Rs300 million development funds for one university complex without taking care of required procedures. In such scenario, the civil service cannot perform even after getting training from institutes of international repute.

However, the official sources said that the government miserable failed in undertaking any serious civil service reforms in its five years tenure and key appointments were made on the basis of favouritism and by ignoring merit. The governance reforms could not be undertaken mainly because the government seemed non serious for implementing any reforms in civil bureaucracy.

“It’s totally [a] strange move that the PML-N at twilight of its tenure is going to approve capacity building programme for bureaucrats,” said a former secretary while talking to The News here on Sunday and added that it would be another effort to please liked bureaucrats to send abroad at luxury tours at the cost of national exchequer.

In the last decade, the World Bank and Pakistan undertook capacity-building programme for civil services with cost of $61 million for which the Washington based lender had provided loan of $55 million. This money proved complete waste as the WB termed this programme as “unsatisfactory” at the end of the programme in 2011.

The WB states in its report that “the project is rated unsatisfactory due to the inability of the project to enhance the institutional capacity of Pakistan’s civil service. The critical failing of the project occurred in design and was based on unrealistic expectations that the extension of education and training to a small portion of staff, improvement of technical infrastructure, and provision of short-term advisory services would be sufficient to motivate broad-based civil service reform. In particular, the design of the project did not appropriately support Pakistan’s broader civil service reform, the failure of which ultimately precluded the achievement of project objectives and did not effectively specify policies necessary to support the effectively utilisation of inputs provided by the project, such as pertained to placement of trained officials. Implementation of the planned activities was also hindered by the large number of participating agencies and bureaucratic obstacles, eventually resulting in the cancellation of $14 million of the $61 million credit. The lack of client ownership in the project during the later stages was underscored by the fact that the National Steering and Coordination Committee did not meet after June 2008, the WB stated.

Now the government can learn from its past mistakes if Islamabad really wants to see improvement in its civil service but first of all political will is required to grant autonomy and independence to bureaucrats so that they can take decisions on merit.