GOVERNMENT has reportedly changed the promotion criteria for senior bureaucrats by drastically increasing discretionary powers of the Central Selection Board (CSB). The move that comes ahead of a CSB meeting allows thirty discretionary marks to CSB members whilst forty marks have been reserved for the Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) and remaining thirty for professional courses.
The criteria for promotion in civil service is already full of lacunas and current move by the government will only further create doubts amongst the bureaucracy that the step is aimed at rewarding the favourite candidates. In our country discretionary powers have always been misused and abused to achieve the vested interests. This is the reason that the courts had earlier struck down the discretionary powers of the CSB that was being exercised on the pretext of integrity of civil servants. Hence, the very decision of the PTI government of handing down further points to the CSB also amounts to negation of the courts’ orders. We, therefore, will ask the government to review its decision and rather come up with a comprehensive formula that ensures merit based promotions in the civil service. This is already what we have been hearing from Prime Minister Imran Khan during his addresses to the civil bureaucracy. Most importantly, the ACR system has proved to be the worst so far to assess the efficiency, professionalism and conduct of the officers. It is only breeding nepotism, exploitation, corruption and coercion. What we have seen over the years is that this system is only leading to promotion of undeserving officers and sidelining of the deserving ones. Such a mechanism needs to be developed that truly assesses the performance of the officers. A task force headed by Special Assistant on Institutional Reforms Dr Ishrat Hussain, is working on bringing civil service reforms. Apart from other matters, the task force should frame such a mechanism of promotion that brings to fore only capable and competent officers. This is important if the government is really interested to introduce good governance and reforms in the institutions.
