The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist.
Recently, the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) announced the final results of the Central Superior Services (CSS) examination for 2019. As always, almost all the top position holders have opted for the Pakistan Administration Service (PAS), easily the most rewarding of all the occupational groups that make up the CSS.
The unveiling of the CSS exam results coincided with a report carried by this newspaper in its June 19 edition that the government is considering to set up a National Executive Service (NES) with a view to racking up the capacity of the civil service to grapple with new challenges. The proposed new service through an improved career structure and market-based pay package will attract a better talent as well as incentivize higher performance.
By juxtaposing the above two developments, two things can be inferred: One, Pakistan’s elite service – the CSS – has gone into a tailspin; otherwise there would be no need to introduce a new service. Two, the CSS exam – arguably the most competitive exam in the country – has come a cropper in recruiting the most suitable ladies and gentlemen. This gives rise to a logical question: How can a new service deliver when the erstwhile has gone off the rails? To answer this question, we need to look for some of the factors that have hobbled the civil service’s performance over the years.
The edifice of the civil service rests on the principle of administrative efficiency. This much cherished principle, which is no more than an assumption, regards governance as essentially a matter of general administrative skills, rather than of specialized knowledge. Hence, a member of the administrative service is deemed to be a past master in accomplishing the most onerous of tasks and have the solution to the most intriguing of problems in their repertoire. This is essentially a colonial principle, which also provided the foundation of the Indian Civil Service in British India. The British themselves have since long tossed this assumption on the scrapheap but we continue to religiously pay allegiance to it as if it was a commandment from the heavens.
As a result, the members of the PAS, formerly named the District Management Group (DMG) and Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), continue to call the shots in every sphere of public policy, no matter which political party is in power. Whether it is negotiating with foreign donors, leading the country in trade parleys, handling the security situation, maintaining law and order, spearheading budget making, drawing up fiscal policy, meeting revenue targets, supervising infrastructure related projects, or steering human capital development, a hard task master and sure-footed administrator capable of leading his/her team by the nose – and only such – can captain their department in the right direction.
Statutory slots, such as members of public service commissions, as well as country positions in multilateral institutions of economic governance, such as the IMF and the World Bank, are also invariably filled by the members of the administrative service.
The Economists and Planners Group (E&PG) is a specialized cadre, which, as the name suggests, is out to take the lead in economic management. Be that as it may, economic management remains an almost exclusive domain of the PAS. The economic ministries, such as finance, commerce, economic affairs, and planning, are headed as a matter of course by the bureaucrats from the PAS, whose core competence consists in administering districts and divisions – a very different ball game. The E&PG officers are relegated to a subordinate role. The generalists, whose knowledge is at best skin-deep, are thus the boss, while the specialists, who know the ropes, are their caddies.
When administrative efficiency is enthroned as the overriding principle of governance, it logically follows that administrative changes, such as scaling up or slashing the budget, reshuffling a few members of the team, or penalizing or rewarding officials are regarded as the appropriate response whenever things go haywire anywhere. For example, when the government falls short of meeting the revenue targets or the central bank is not adroitly managing the money supply, the familiar recipe is to replace the head of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) or the State Bank of Pakistan, as the case may be, with an administrator who is reputedly a cut above the rest.
Where such an administrator will come from should not be a million dollar question. Of course, he/she will be a retired or in service grandee of the PAS/DMG. At present, when the PTI government is reportedly looking for a new FBR chairperson and a fresh SBP governor, current or former officials of the administrative service are among the frontrunners.
The principle of administrative efficiency in part accounts for the below par performance of the public sector. Governance is not synonymous with administrative changes. Governance if it is to be effective requires not a jack of all trade but people endowed with specialized knowledge and skills, who can go to the heart of the problem on hand, analyze it penetratively, and then come up with a solution, which may not be eye-catching but which appeals to the intellect.
There is no substitute for hard-earned knowledge. By looking at some slick powerpoint presentations or going through concise briefs and learning by heart some terminologies, no one can become a specialist. Here is an example. In the face of stagnant tax revenue, a generalist head of department, will reshuffle his/her team, fill the key positions with the officials who can get things done and keep the subordinates’ nose to the grindstone. On the other hand, a specialist, who has spent all their career in the department, while giving due importance to team building, will focus on the factors, such as the state of the economy and lack of documentation, that make for low tax revenue.
The creation of a dozen occupational groups in the civil service is the admission that effective governance requires specialization. However, the principle of administrative efficiency has turned the notion of specialization on its head. The administrative efficiency assumption may have worked up to a point until a few decades ago. But as governance is becoming ever more complicated, the civil service is coming under growing strain and is becoming increasingly clueless.
In case the principle of administrative efficiency has become so obsolete, why do we continue to repose our unflinching trust in it? Well, for at least two reasons. For one thing, this arrangement suits politicians, who with their eye on the next election are eager to find a magic bullet for all the pressing problems, which only a no-nonsense administrator can deliver. That is why political masters on balance prefer ‘clear-headed’ and ‘quick-witted’ administrative officials, who by virtue of their lack of expertise, can dance to their tune, to ‘confused’ and ‘hairsplitting’ specialists, who lose themselves in the labyrinth of details and analysis. The stage is thus set for politician-bureaucrat logrolling, which has impaired both competence and integrity of the civil service.
For another, the people who are made in charge of civil service reforms are almost always drawn from the administrative service, and so have a creed-like devotion to the principle of administrative efficiency. It’s at best naive and at worst criminal to expect this breed to come up with meaningful civil service reforms. Not surprisingly, every attempt at civil service reform during the past half a century has ended up toning up the administrative service.
Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, the current government has set out to retool the civil service. The proposed creation of the NES is part of these efforts. Be that as it may, all the star advisers to the prime minister on these reforms are retired or in-service officers of the CSP/DMG/PAS cadre. Thus there is the strong apprehension that these reforms, particularly the creation of the NES, will end up making the administrative service more powerful.
I conclude with a couplet from Meer Taqi Meer: Meer kya sada hain bimar hoye jis ke sabab, usi attar ke londay se dawa lete hain (Translation: How naïve of me that the source of my malady and treatment is the same person!).
Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com
Twitter: @hussainhzaidi
