Where to start, though, and how to go about it?
With archaic rules and inefficient public service delivery, the government of Pakistan could well do with a host of sweeping reforms. Despite efforts by various governments, a lack of political continuity has resulted in a reforms backlog. Whether education or infrastructure, every sector in the public services sector lags behind in established objective measures used to evaluate performance, indicating a need to reform our systems. Take education, for example; teacher absenteeism, primary school enrolment rates, teachers to pupil ratio, all lie at the lower end of the performance spectrum. Sandwiched between Mali and Madagascar, Pakistan is at 129 in the Global Competitive Report, surely an objective indication of the system’s need for reform.
Meaningful reform will often have costs associated with it. There are financial costs that are incurred with changing the present systems. New technologies are introduced, employees need to be retrained to work in the new system and a learning curve needs to be overcome by companies and individuals affected by the new reforms. Then there are economic and social costs that need to be dealt with in the form of retrenchments and increased competition among companies, for example.
Additionally, much political capital is exhausted in implementing reforms since it is rare for the process to not result in a zero-sum game, often leading to resistance and protests against those losing out because of the changes.
As an illustration, reforms in Mexico’s telecommunications sector are expected to hurt the commercial interests of Carlos Slim. Similarly, the eventual dismantling of the license Raj under Bhutto led to bureaucrats losing out on rents accruing due to their discretionary powers granted by the system.
For a developing country like Pakistan, the greatest loss to society results from the commodification of justice, allowing those with capital to tilt the playing field in their favour.
With limited resources, especially among developing countries, initiating reform can be a costly and destabilising endeavour. Which leaves us with the question, when so many things need fixing, where does one begin? Is it the education sector or perhaps the energy sector? What about the bureaucracy, insular and monolithic? Or seeing how ineffectual Pakistan’s judicial system is, perhaps the government should focus its energies in reforming that?
In order to maximise returns on investment, reforms that provide the largest dividends to the highest number of people in the shortest amount of time, ought to be undertaken first. There is a need for reform at nearly all levels in the state, however, a focus on corruption could greatly improve service delivery of key organisations and institutions.
Every year, corrupt practices cause damages worth trillions of dollars around the world. While the financial aspect is astounding in its scale, the human suffering wrought by corruption is plain terrifying. By some estimates, corruption alone is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 2.8 million people globally each year, according to a report by an anti-poverty organisation.
The issue with corruption is that it results in a gross misallocation of resources across sectors, allowing those with political and/or bureaucratic power to monopolise resources that would otherwise have gone to more productive uses. With decision making in the delivery of public services tilted in favour of personal gain rather than the public good, the loss accruing to the populace is unfathomable.
A system that shows tolerance for corruption is bound to produce a deterioration of public services at the aggregate level. For a developing country like Pakistan, the greatest loss to society results from the commodification of justice, allowing those with capital to tilt the playing field in their favour. The provision of justice is a precondition for creating a modern society and for fulfilling the very basic human need for justice.
Corruption reform, because of its all-encompassing nature, is harder to implement than most other forms of reform. Where vested interests are threatened, and corruption reform is bound to threaten interests on nearly every level of society, resistance will be inevitable. However, Rwanda and Georgia are two countries that have been able to tackle corruption effectively. The two countries’ ruthlessness in handling corruption has borne fruit as both have seen a marked improvement in their rankings in various corruption indices.
Rwanda, under the leadership of its democratically elected quasi-strong man Paul Kagame, has had great success in its battle against corruption. Part of Rwanda’s success came in its ability to weed out corruption ruthlessly from state organisations. In a report on East Africa, published in 2010, Transparency International rated Rwanda as having negligible corruption.
Part of Rwanda’s success came in its ability to weed out corruption ruthlessly from state organisations.
While other reforms implemented by the Rwandan authorities were just as important, we must recognise the critical part played by the anti-corruption drive initiated by the government.
The effectiveness of Rwanda’s anti-corruption drive can be seen in an upward trend in the country’s ranking in corruption indices. From an abysmal 123 on the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom from Corruption index in 2000, Rwanda climbed up to a very respectable 48 by 2013. During the same time period, Pakistan continued its ignominious march on the same index, dropping 23 places, from 110 to 133, in a matter of 13 years.
Let us take a moment to appreciate the fact that this is happening in a country that has had to deal with one of the bitterest bouts of ethnic conflict seen in the modern world, with an estimated 800,000 people dying in the 1994 Hutu-Tutsi conflict. Rwanda’s resurgence has been spectacular, with the economy growing at an average of nearly 7 per cent per annum for the past 10 years. Credit must go to the leadership of Rwanda which had the common sense and foresight to not use these ethnic rivalries to further their political causes.
Similarly, Geogria under Mikhail Sakashvilli has been able to reduce corruption in a system where once corruption was endemic and an overarching theme of life. The country has made terrific gains, rising from a position of 123 in 2000 to 63 in 2013, on the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom from Corruption index.
In Pakistan’s case, it will be decidedly harder to execute and sustain anti-corruption reforms. The sheer size of the country is one stumbling block. An environment which promotes rent seeking and patronage over more legitimate forms of profit could also potentially make any reforms difficult to execute. Entrenched political and bureaucratic interests would also lose out greatly from anti-corruption reform and hence resist any moves that would reduce their rent generating abilities, not overtly of course but through the time tested tactics of subversion and sabotage.
The examples of Rwanda and Georgia are indicative of governments’ ability to effectively tackle corruption within the public sector. A characteristic common to both governments has been the political will to go through with the reforms and show little tolerance for corruption at any level of government. Both Rwanda and Georgia have shown a great degree of resolve to prosecute those charged with corruption and have allowed their respective anti-corruption bodies to go about their job without political interference. This same could be achieved in Pakistan too, given public support and political will.