More crucial changes are required than a routine attendance check
A lot of hype had been created in the recent past to measure the performance of federal ministers. Whether this is happening as a regular governance norm or a one-time-event is unclear. Yet, the practice of measuring ministerial performance is important governance practice and ought to be adopted as a regular feature of the working of the federal government. As is oftentimes quoted in management literature and is worth reproducing here: “Something which cannot be measured will not be achieved.”
To avoid the mistake of instituting a performance evaluation system at the apex of the governance pyramid, it is most desirable to (a) design a system based on robust principles and (b) to adopt it as a regular feature to monitor performance. These are the two core principles of sound performance assessment system. In view of these two core principles I intend to elaborate the same in what follows.
In designing a robust performance measurement system, there are few steps that must be followed to create an objective system of evaluation. Without objectivity, the system will become suspect and would not be able to create the decisional impact which it is intended to achieve. What are the essential steps in designing an objective and robust evaluation system?
First and foremost, it is absolutely essential as a starting point that the Prime Minister himself should create a roadmap for the period of his tenure to periodically monitor his own performance. Second, this roadmap should be broken into key sectors of primary interest to the people of Pakistan. Third, from the Prime Minister’s roadmap should be derived the sectoral roadmaps of each ministry on yearly basis. The ministry roadmap ought to have clearly defined milestones which will constitute the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of each Minister.
It is advisable that maximum efforts should be made to quantify the milestones for objective measurements of each Minister’s performance. The frequency of monitoring and review of performance can vary but an effective performance monitoring would warrant, at least, quarterly review. This review should form the basis of providing thorough feedback to the concerned Minister. For avoiding uncalled for embarrassment to the Minister whose performance may not be satisfactory, it is suggested that such performance review must be given one-to-one basis.
Also, at the end of each quarter a joint performance review session of the Cabinet should be held for stock take of the government as a collective entity. This session should be conducted on ‘no holds barred’ principle and that the Ministers should have the courage to speak their minds if in their opinion the Prime Minister had failed to provide quality leadership expected from him to serve as a role model for the Ministers.
What should be the outcome from the implementation of such a performance review system? It is hoped that frank periodic feedback to the Ministers will help improve performance. Two years interval, if not at the end of each year, should be the time to take some tough decisions. If, in the assessment of the Prime Minister, a Minister had failed to tighten his/her belt after regular feedback to improve performance, then that Minister will only cause embarrassment to the entire government and hence needs to be off-loaded from the Cabinet bus. This is the only way to improve government’s performance. Personal loyalty while important in politics should not be the basis of decisions regarding the appointment of Cabinet members. Competence and merit should be the guiding principles for such appointments.
Today if one were to look at the expectations of the people from this government, six key areas emerge as the most critical ones. These include alleviating poverty, economic growth for job creation and reducing unemployment, controlling inflation, energy management and improving law and order. Now these high priority areas from popular expectations may be in conflict with the government’s desire to focus on physical infrastructure. While not denying the importance of physical infrastructure, good governance practice would demand that people’s expectations and the government’s development agenda ought to converge at a common point. In case this convergence is not possible, then people’s expectations from the government should be given the highest priority.
Finally, the government of Nawaz Sharif must delineate its own operating values of good governance practices. Popular perceptions regarding slowness and insensitivity to people’s problems need to be address without any delay. Here it must be stressed that in all key decisions, rule of law, meritocracy instead of personal loyalty and avoiding conflict of interest which is diametrically opposed to rule of law must be avoided at all costs.
Pakistan today is standing at crossroads. Democratic governance does require thorough performance evaluation of the Cabinet and an undiluted commitment to good governance practices. Mere rhetoric emanating from Islamabad will not work in the present era of people’s awareness of their problems and expectations from their rulers. People’s expectations must be aligned with the government’s actions. Any misalignment will only provide an opportunity to the political rivals of the government to manipulate the situation and create widespread disenchantment with the rulers.
One hopes that given the fact that Mr Nawaz Sharif had become PM for the third time he would leave behind a solid legacy of good governance and set high standards of performance which will not be easy to match by future governments.
