PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday approved new rules for civil servants to ensure transparent and effective internal accountability. In order to speed up the process, the tier of the authorized officer has been eliminated, leaving two tiers: the authority and inquiry officer or committee. This system is expected to resolve the issue of decisions regarding disciplinary proceedings at a lower level by having the authorized officer handing out penalties.
We do not doubt the very intention of the government as it wants to increase efficiency and discipline in the public sector departments which in fact is the way forward to improve the governance and deliver to the expectations of the masses. However, it must also be ensured that under the garb of internal accountability, the employees are not victimized as it will further ruin the departments. The existing system of checking the performance of employees through ACRs also needs to be reviewed thoroughly as different tactics are used especially by the incapable officers to get excellent reports from their seniors in order to get promotion. This is the reason that the talented and capable officers are not coming to the fore. The truth is that no government can function without a team of good civil servants. Merit should be ensured in recruitments as well as promotions to improve the performance of departments. The PTI government had announced the much-trumpeted civil service reforms with a bang to break inertia, enhance quality of delivery, improve efficiency and ensure merit. These are, of course, noble ideals for which the masses of Pakistan have been yearning since long. However, the government just came out with the punitive aspect of reforms by enacting the Civil Servants (Directory Retirement from Service) Rules, 2020 under which the employees can be retired even before reaching sixty years of age on the basis of their performance. Undoubtedly, retention of high performers should be one of the most important criteria. However, before introducing these rules, the government should also have reviewed the criterion or mechanism for judging the performance of employees. Better remuneration packages are also important to motivate and get the most from the civil servants.
