Subsequent Supreme Court proceedings have also referred to the principles laid down in that judgment. The question, therefore, is not whether such principles exist. The question is whether they are consistently respected in practice. If officers can be transferred before completion of a prescribed tenure without transparent and legally defensible reasons, then the principle of predictable tenure becomes difficult to sustain. And if an officer knows that challenging an improper order may itself have professional consequences, institutional safeguards lose much of their practical value. Civil-service reform should therefore explicitly address the implementation of tenure protections—not to make officers immune from legitimate administrative action, but to ensure that transfers and postings are based on law, public interest and transparent criteria rather than personal or political considerations.
The same principle applies to accountability. A new performance-management system may establish targets, evaluations and financial rewards. But corruption and inefficiency cannot be eliminated simply by changing performance appraisal forms. They are also influenced by excessive discretion, opaque procedures, weak enforcement and the perception that influential individuals can escape consequences. This is where Pakistan’s accountability architecture deserves closer examination. The Public Accounts Committee and parliamentary oversight mechanisms are intended to examine issues such as financial irregularities, wastage, misuse of public funds, losses to the public exchequer and weaknesses in financial management.
During my own service career, including occasions when I attended such proceedings in connection with the Auditor General’s functions, I observed a recurring institutional concern: accountability can become ineffective when responsibility is diffused across several layers of the executive and legislature. Audit observations may identify irregularities, yet the process can continue for years. Officers may retire or be transferred before matters are finally resolved. Responsibility can consequently become difficult to fix. This creates an unfortunate incentive.If officials observe that serious audit observations rarely result in timely and proportionate consequences, the deterrent effect of accountability is weakened. This is not an argument for punishing civil servants indiscriminately. On the contrary, accountability must itself be fair, evidence-based and due-process oriented. But accountability cannot rest solely on the shoulders of civil servants.
The entire chain of decision-making must be accountable. Where a financial or administrative decision involves a minister, secretary, board, committee or other authority, responsibility should be traceable according to the actual decision-making process. Otherwise, civil servants become convenient targets for institutional failures for which responsibility may be shared. Digitalisation is a tool, not a substitute for integrity. The proposed emphasis on digital government is therefore welcome. Automated procedures, electronic procurement, online approvals, digital records and traceable transactions can substantially reduce opportunities for arbitrary intervention and improve transparency. But technology is not a substitute for the rule of law.An arbitrary decision can also be digitised. A corrupt process can also be automated.
If the person controlling the system remains beyond meaningful accountability, technology merely creates a more sophisticated version of the same problem. Digital reform must therefore go hand in hand with transparent rules, audit trails, independent oversight and meaningful consequences for abuse. Specialisation: necessary, but not sufficient. The proposal to create 11 specialised professional cadres addresses another long-standing weakness of Pakistan’s bureaucracy: the mismatch between professional expertise and administrative responsibility.
The proposed cadres include areas such as law, engineering, science and technology, IT and telecommunications, energy, climate, agriculture and forestry, education, health and human-resource management. There is a strong administrative rationale for greater specialisation. A modern government deals with highly technical issues involving artificial intelligence, climate change, energy markets, digital infrastructure, health systems, financial regulation and complex engineering projects. It is increasingly difficult to justify a system in which an officer may spend years working in a highly specialised field without possessing an academic or professional background in that discipline. However, specialisation alone will not solve the governance problem. A technically qualified officer can still be subjected to improper pressure. A specialist can still be transferred arbitrarily. An expert can still be ignored when a decision conflicts with a powerful interest. Therefore, specialisation must be accompanied by institutional safeguards that allow expertise to influence decisions.
The proposal to open senior positions to serving officials, academics and private-sector professionals is another potentially significant development. Government can benefit enormously from bringing specialised expertise into senior decision-making. But lateral entry must be based on transparent eligibility criteria, competitive selection, declared conflicts of interest and publicly defensible procedures. Otherwise, a reform intended to introduce merit could create another avenue for discretionary appointments. The same principle applies to performance-linked rewards. Performance incentives can encourage productivity, but only if performance is objectively measurable and independently verifiable.
If performance assessments are controlled by individuals who themselves have significant discretion over postings and promotions, performance management could unintentionally become another mechanism for rewarding favourites. The system must therefore measure results, integrity, competence and institutional contribution, rather than simply loyalty or the ability to satisfy superiors. What about political accountability?
Civil-service reform cannot be separated from democratic governance. Democracy is not merely the periodic holding of elections. For democratic governance to strengthen public administration, political institutions must provide legitimate policy direction, Parliament must exercise meaningful oversight, constitutional rules must be respected and institutions must operate within clearly defined boundaries.— To be continued
—The writer is Senior Retd bureaucrat, based in Lahore.
