THE most dominant aspect of Tuesday’s meeting of the Federal Cabinet was reported annoyance of Prime Minister Imran Khan who issued stricter warnings to his cabinet colleagues and others over unsatisfactory performance as well as statements giving an impression of not taking ownership of some of the policies and decisions of the Government. Expressing zero tolerance for disagreement, he cautioned ministers either to defend policies and decisions or resign. Similarly, he was critical of lack of required progress on the ticklish and multi-dimensional issue of institutional reforms and wanted introduction of measures aimed at full transparency in the working of the institution of the Auditor-General against which allegations of financial corruption to the tune of Rs.180 billion have been hurled.
The unease of the Prime Minister is understandable as his Government has completed half of its tenure and would be under immense pressure to deliver in the remaining period. That is why he reportedly told his team that there was no room for error and attention must be paid to resolving problems of the people. This is absolutely right and the performance can be improved provided right people are assigned right jobs and the Ministers give full-time attention to their ministries. The main reason for lack of progress towards implementation of the agenda of the Government is the tendency on the part of the cabinet members to focus more on politics than on working of their ministries and subordinate offices. The country is facing serious challenges in various sectors and it is the duty of the ministers to analyze issues pertaining to their domain, do necessary planning, propose the way out, get their plans approved by the Cabinet and then implement them in letter and spirit. However, it has been observed that most of the ministers prefer issuing political statements only and care not much about problems that their ministries can help resolve. The Minister for Information and Broadcasting is spokesperson of the Government and one can understand his remarks and statements on different issues but other ministers can, at best, talk about their own subjects alone and must not indulge in political blame game as people would form their opinions on actual performance and delivery and not mere propaganda.
The PM Office has signed performance contracts with different ministries and divisions and now they ought to focus on realization of their targets; they have been assigned. We have been emphasizing in these columns that the Government has introduced a number of policies and programmes with potential to bring about a positive change in the life of the people but actual implementation is not clearly visible. The PM Office ought to inquire from the relevant ministries and departments as to what they have achieved so far and remove hurdles, if any, in the way of fuller implementation. As for institutional reforms, the Prime Minister must have reasons to express dissatisfaction. The real target of the institutional reforms should have been to ensure required improvement in the working of different institutions but what we have witnessed so far is abolition of vacant posts, downsizing and merger/abolition of different institutions, steps that have added to the unemployment and economic woes of the people. Every institution has a justification and rationale for its existence and the saner approach would have been to identify factors and reasons that hinder realization of its goals. The objective of institutional reforms can be realized in the true sense of the word if qualified, competent and motivated people are appointed as their head and given targets to achieve in a given timeframe.
And the exercise of reforming institutions would remain half-baked if provinces are left out of the process as the majority of their functions are intrinsically linked to the day-to-day problems and issues of the people. The audit of offices is done to check malpractices and wrongdoings but there are persistent reports of corruption by auditors as a result of which the entire process of auditing becomes fruitless. The foremost job of the Government should, therefore, be to introduce transparency in the working of the Auditor-General’s office but strangely enough its scope is being widened to include entities that were previously left out of its domain, which is reflective of lack of clarity and vision on the part of the authorities concerned. As for the decision of the cabinet to waive duties and taxes on diesel with a view to curbing its smuggling, this, together with sealing of petrol pumps involving in sale of smuggled oil, is an indirect admission of failure to take administrative measures to check smuggling.
