Failing CPEC

It’s not the project rather the institution that will fail it

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has in recent days received more than required criticism on whether the project itself is an efficient one or not; some have objected on the mere route that the roads will take from China to Gwadar and the injustice that is being done to the smaller provinces yet again, while others have been engaged in the futile discussion of it being an investment or a loan but what most of them have overlooked is the major aspect of this project: does Pakistan even have the institutional capacity to implement this project or not?

The project might have its merits and demerits and no one can be entirely sure about it until the project is implemented but one thing that everyone in Pakistan can attest to is the weak institutions that the country homes. Be it law enforcement or education, one of the most fundamental problems is that of institutions. This article will, through the six variables (educational match, technology, absorption of skills/talent, system of law, equitable working environment and innovation), used by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in their research on institutions, evaluate the institution directly involved with CPEC i.e., Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform and pass a verdict whether this institution has the girth to successfully implement the project or not.

Most of the institutions of Pakistan have the same fundamentals that the British left us; the bureaucracy follows the same practices, the institutions follow the same norms and even the recruitment processes haven’t changed since 1947. Hence the institutions still remain the extractive kind as they used to be when the main objective of our white masters was to extract resources from the colonies and direct them to Great Britain. Over all these years only masters have changed, now the local bureaucrats extract these resources by using whatsoever power they have to make their lives better. This path dependence has brought with it the inefficiency that the system of bureaucracy reeks of and its inability to promote economic growth and development in the country due to plagued institutions. The extent of this path dependence can be gauged from the fact that even today there are separate toilets for the “Officers” and the “Staff”, as if the former gushes forth rainbows and rose petals while doing their business.

Educational match and absorption of skills/talent

This variable evaluates whether the employees working in a particular institution have the educational capacity to the match the job description or not. If we look at the recruitment criteria of a CSP “officer”, we can observe that it doesn’t matter what you have studied for fourteen years of your life as well as it is completely irrelevant what subjects you opted for when you took the CSS exams. What matters is how much you scored and that’s it. If you are good at memorising out of context, obsolete information and have the capacity to replicate it on a piece of paper, you certainly will be trusted with the responsibility to work on matters of foreign affairs, budget formulation and project management. Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms does not have the human capital required to carry out day to day affairs of the ministry let alone implement a huge regional integration project. And even if you are the odd one out who was recruited individually and have the educational and professional experience in sync with the job description, you will be treated like fodder for the high ranked officials to bulk up on. The ability of the high ranked officials to treat a lower ranked officer’s worthy suggestion or implicate it as his own work in front of his own superiors is fascinating.

Technology and innovation

Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform in particular and all the institutions of Pakistan in general haven’t given up on their love for paper. Even today there are people working at the institutions with their only purpose of delivering a file filled with official documents from one officer’s office to another. The entire idea of internet or email has been discarded by the government institutions of Pakistan very subtly. There are very few computers and even fewer people who know how to use them. The entire concept of keeping everything that is official on paper creates the “loss of files”. This system not only creates efficiency losses but also uses a lot of time. So, in terms of technology and innovation, the ministry fails to meet the required criteria to be called an efficient institution and by extension to implement a huge project like CPEC.

System of law

The administration system of Pakistan lacks accountability entirely. The recruited employees in any of the institutions are not at all subject to performance reviews; promotions and salary increments are based on the time served rather than the quality of work they did during that time. How can an institution, where its employees are not accounted for the work they do, implement a mega project like CPEC where time and work done within is of essence? A place where no one is held accountable for the delay in work or subjected to a penalty for not doing his/her work doesn’t have the capacity to carry out a project that required diligence and attention to detail.

Equitable work environment

The unsaid rule that a staff member who is not an officer is supposed to wear shalwar kameez (attire of peasant in context of the colonial master-subject setting) to work and should use a different toilet than his superior, speaks itself for the sort of equity that is practised in the governmental institutes of Pakistan. In terms of gender balance the score that government institutes get is very low. Women are objectified, considered inferior to men and mostly hired to take notes or receive phone calls for the “officers”. Following the path dependent norms of colonial times in this day and age makes Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms highly extractive in nature hence unfit for implementation of CPEC.

Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms has to go a long way in order to be considered fit for design and implementation of this project. One may argue that the Ministry has the experience of implementing it and these things go side by side in our culture but experience of doing things wrong is in fact no experience in itself. Institutions act as the lynchpin for any country’s success and the projects it implements and if the institutions themselves are flawed then the projects and their implementations shouldn’t be blamed. In order to solve any problem it is important to find the roots first. It is not the nature of the project that is flawed but the characteristics of the institution that designed the project and will play a major role in implementing it.