Dysfunctional ministry exposes ‘good governance’

The mismanagement and inefficiency of the government has virtually placed important national educational and medical institutions under a ‘paper-ministry’, as the government has failed to make the newly-created Ministry of National Regulations and Services fully functional despite the passage of around a month since its notification.
Apparently to accommodate PPP and coalition parliamentarians on ministerial berths, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on October 26 created four new federal ministries with divisions, including the Ministries of National Heritage and Integration, Disaster Management, National Regulations and Services and Food Security and Research.
However, the ministry exists only on paper, as it has no premises and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has also not appointed any minister, minister of state and parliamentary secretary for the ministry of National Regulations and Services.
As the ministry has no office, no staff, allocation of budget by the Finance Division is simply out of question. Prime Minister Gilani appointed Ghulam Rasool Aphan as secretary for the ministry of National Regulations and Services on November 24, thirty days after the creation of the ministry.
The other three ministries created on October 26 have become functional to some extent, as Mir Israrullah Zehri from Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-A) was given the portfolio of the ministry of Food Security and Research, while Samina Khalid Ghurki of the PPP was made federal minister for National Heritage and Integration.
Gilani has also not appointed a minister for the Ministry of Disaster Management, but the ministry is functioning under bureaucrats.
An official of the ministry of National Heritage and Integration also raised concern over the issue of under-staffing in the ministry. “We have not been provided full staff and even budget for the ministry has not been allocated yet … the ministry was provided space in Evacuee Trust Building to establish office, but we were provided no funds to setup offices in the premises,” he said.
The departments that come under the Ministry of National Regulations and Services include Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, Pakistan Council for Nursing, College of Physicians and Surgeons, National Councils for Tibb and Homeopathy, Pharmacy Council of Pakistan, international exchange of students and teachers, foreign studies and training, national association in medical and allied fields such as Pakistan Red Crescent Society and TB Association, directorate of central health establishment, Academy of Educational Planning and management, Central Board of Film Censor Islamabad, external examination and equivalence of degrees and diplomas, Commission for Standard Higher Education, Women and Chest Disease Hospital, Rawalpindi and Federal Government Tuberculosis Centre, Rawalpindi. “Today, these institutions have no mother ministry as they have been transferred from the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination, while the Ministry of National Regulations does not exist on the ground,” an official of the ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination said.
Another source in the government told Pakistan Today that the prime minister had failed to appoint federal ministers and state ministers for the ministries of disaster management and national regulations and services due to differences between coalition partners over securing ministerial berths.
“One portfolio is likely to be given to the PML-Q while a PPP leader would be accommodated on the other,” he added.