Upset ministers and Arbab’s explanation: Panel of former and serving bureaucrats assessed cabinet’s performance

ISLAMABAD: The Thursday's announcement about the performance of ministers, which caused quite a stir within the government circles, is part of the major reform initiative introduced by the PTI regime after the cabinet's approval.

As part of the same reform, the PM had entered into a performance contract with each minister with specific goals and targets, which were to be monitored periodically. The Thursday's result, as announced by the Prime Minister himself, was the consequence of first periodical monitoring done by a review committee headed by Arbab Shahzad and included deputy chairman Planning Commission, secretary Establishment and secretary Finance as its members.

Some ministers argue in their background discussions as to how could the review committee comprising un-elected persons judge the performance of cabinet members. Many of those failing to make it to the top 10 are questioning the procedure adopted to decide the positioning of ministers.

According to a ministerial source, the Shahzad Arbab-led review committee did not properly convey to the ministers about the procedure adopted to assess their performance. Another minister complained that while 70 score was earmarked for their "output" on the basis of the targets set by them, critically important remaining 30 score was left for the assessment made by the review committee.

One of the ministers said that Dr Shireen Mazari was upset that she though made it to the top 10, lost the top-most positions because she got bad numbers from the committee. A minister said that there was a joke shared among some cabinet colleagues that Asad Umar got the benefit because his top ministry official was part of the review committee.

Shahzad Arbab, when contacted, said that there were only two options before the government. Either don't do anything or bring a change. He said that we brought the change and evaluated the performance of all in a well-structured manner. He said that the result of their assessment may have upset many but it is an initiative that is greatly appreciated by many outsiders.

Explaining the procedure, he said that the assessment is 70pc quantitative based on targets was given by the ministries themselves. He said that 30pc is qualitative, which is assessed on the basis of quality of initiatives, efforts required and made, dependency resolution (how a minister helped other ministries to complete tasks) and tasks completed over and above the set targets.

Arbab said that the assessment is done by the committee in a transparent manner. He explained that all members of the committee give their own number to each ministry. About the merit and transparency of the committee's assessment, he said that the prime minister's own division, Establishment Division, is assessed and placed at No 18th. The minister said that in the committee assessment, 23 ministries and divisions scored over 80pc. He said that the committee could not give top 10 positions to all ministries and divisions.

In July last, Prime Minister Imran Khan had entered into a performance contract with all the ministers. In these contracts, the ministers themselves submitted their targets, projects, policies etc. along with the timeline given for completion of these targets. It is said that the review committee assessed the ministers' performance on the basis of the information received from them.