Thirty nine officers belonging to different service groups of the federal and provincial governments and autonomous corporations took part in the course aimed at improving the general management skills of the participants and grooming them for assuming higher responsibilities.The president of the Bank of Punjab Zafar Masud, addressing the ceremony as the chief guest, appreciated the important role of higher officials in public service delivery and decision making at the strategic and policy level.
He also acknowledged the efforts of NIPA for capacity building of civil servants. Masud stressed the need for completely overhauling the civil service system in Pakistan with the revision of teaching methods and curriculum to align them with the best international practices.
He maintained that no such system existed in any part of the world where decision making was flawless. He added that mistakes did happen on strategic and administrative levels. The Bank of Punjab president opined that the management course curriculum should be revisited in accordance with the modern age technological and digital advancements.
The Pakistani civil service high ups must review and learn from the remarkable transformation of China and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and governance systems of the United Kingdom and Malaysia in order to ensure best service delivery and adaptation to shifting paradigms, he suggested.
He also called for taking help from emerging digital technologies to improve service delivery and decision making. Masud underscored the need for focusing on environmental aspects and paradigm shift from traditional security to economic security.He also announced on the occasion contribution on behalf of his bank for making the NIPA library a robust and state-of-the-art institution with better facilities for officers acquiring training. He also announced that he would help install an ATM at NIPA.
NIPA Director General Dr Syed Saif ur Rehman emphasised in his welcome speech the importance of technological advancements and said civil servants have to realign themselves in the artificial intelligence-driven world.
