Public Service Reform – V

The technocratic public representative will also give option to political parties to have a better pool for selecting parliamentary members for ministerial positions, especially those dealing with more technical subjects like finance, planning, trade, and investment, among others. At the same time for governance related ministries, like interior ministry or home departments at the provincial level for example, could be manned with ministers from the pool of administrative public representatives.

Moreover, with regard to understudy parliamentarians, there could be a possibility to devise a system to allow them to attend parliamentary sessions as guests to provide them with opportunity to enhance their learning curve as possible future parliamentarians.  As an extension, this would be all the more important on days when for example the finance minister is delivering budget speech or answering weekly questions, and the presence of his/her understudy as guest would allow him/her to learn valuable experience. Hence, the presence of understudies from respective administrative of technocratic backgrounds to be present as guest in parliament as guests, is all the more important on days when the related public representative is conducting important work in the session.

In the same vein, it should also be looked into by current parliamentarians to legislate laws whereby understudy parliamentarians could attend standing committee meetings as observers/guests, related with their areas of technical or administrative expertise, to add to their preparation so that they if and when the time comes to participate as elected public representatives, they are better prepared.

Managing the economy is a substantial part of the affairs of any government. The current structure and spread of ministries and provincial departments in this regard, requires innovative up-gradation to adequately allow entire public service — both public representatives and public servants — to properly handle the needs of modern day economy.

The Planning Ministry should have four major sub-ministries or institutions that are (a) Real Sector Ministry, (b) Fiscal Sector Ministry, (c) Monetary/Financial Sector Ministry, and (d) External Sector Ministry. In turn, on the same lines as indicated in the previous article, each sub-ministry will have both sets of technocratic and administrative public servants. Similarly, in the parliament there should be formulated on permanent bases parliamentary committees matching work with regard to each of the sub ministries, whereby related technocratic and administrative public representatives should oversee and contribute towards the work of these ministries.

It would make sense to clarify what each of the four sub-ministries will be focussed on. Firstly, the real sector ministry will deal with production of goods and services, among others, a) agriculture, livestock, and irrigation, b) food, c) industries, d) human development, and within it primarily, i) education, ii) health, and iii) population stabilisation, e) development of real sector markets including the labour market, and f) transport. Moreover this ministry will cover the following services, a) private sector regulation, b) tourism, c) disaster management, and d) media.

The fiscal sector ministry, which will be an extended version of the current ministry of finance, will focus on focuses on government fiscal operations, primarily pertaining to a) budget, b) domestic resource mobilisation, and within it, i) undocumented/black economy, and ii) tax policy and administration, and c) domestic debt markets (both primary and secondary).

In the monetary/financial sector sphere, institutions will include, a) State (or central) Bank, which will also be the regulator of banking sector, b) commercial and investment bank, c) bon-bank financial institutions, d) stock exchange, and f) securities and exchange commission. Moreover, while the fiscal and monetary/financial sectors need to coordinate with each other, yet it is important that the central bank exercises necessary level of autonomy. Also, the fiscal sector ministry will look at the fiscal aspects of every other ministry of the economy and the polity, under the overall policy framework of the ministry of planning, so that it meets short-, medium-, and long-term needs in this regard.

External sector institutions will evolve governance and incentive structures, to deal with a) foreign aid, b) external debt, c) exports promotion, and d) imports rationalisation; moreover will deal with both globalisation/free trade aspects and trade unions.

Moreover, within the external sector ministry, there should be a section, dealing with the rollback of all foreign lending — multilateral and bilateral — so that the country should moves towards greater self-reliance over time, and only limits itself to technical assistance by development partners to build capacity of the labour, including both public representatives and public servants.

Also, in each sub-ministry there should be an IT (information technology) section to move official work towards e-governance. At the same time, to curtail corruption, National Accountability Bureau should have four sections in line with the four sub-ministries; to check corruption in each of the four sub-ministries. Here, to check financial corruption, the State (or central) Bank, the office of banking ombudsman (federal and provincial offices), and other related surveillance/regulatory authorities should have special sections corresponding to these sub-ministries.

Moreover, it is important that there is no duplication of activity happening in various ministries. For example, a particular policy reform section of each sub-ministry should be only in that ministry, and the same work is not carried out in other ministries. Also, to improve upon coordination of the work being done between policy and administrative sections of each sub-ministry, both should be physically located in the vicinity of each other.

To purge the neoliberal policy, there should be a section in each sub-ministry, which should work towards this objective by scanning previous policy and safeguarding the new one. In this regard, it should first also comprehend and create understand the neoliberal policy mindset and framework, and establish a policy outline in this regard.

Hence, it is important to see ministries as institutions under the framework of heterodox literature of for example institutional economics, and at the same time this structural transformation is important. This would also mean understanding the difference between the institutional role of the ministry, and the organisational role of its departments (both at the federal and provincial levels).

Overall, it needs to be emphasised that the planning ministry should hold the primary responsibility of steering the economic planning and its implementation, in a specialised way through the creation of four sub-ministries. The current role of the planning and development ministry is limited and the overall work of the ministries is uncoordinated and there is duplication of effort in some areas, while very little focus is seen in other areas. This would also mean a re-defined role of the ministry of finance under the proposed fiscal sector ministry to meet the fiscal and expenditure sides of all other ministries in both the economy and the polity; the latter will be in the sense that meeting all economic aspects of other ministries to be ultimately be the responsibility of the proposed ministry of planning and within it, the four sub-ministries. At the same time the current ministry of economic affairs and statistics will also transform into external sector ministry, while the ‘statistics’ portion will be transferred to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, as one custodian of data with regard to the economy.

While the proposed ministry of planning will give the overall economic policy, these sub-ministries will work in a specialised way to evolve detailed needed policy in each sphere to properly the economic objectives in the overall policy in a focused and coordinated way. Both the ministry of planning and the sub-ministries will work in an environment of checks and balances; with each having specific autonomy and discretion over each other. Hence, while the four sub-ministries will work in their respective domains, the overarching planning ministry will primarily provide platform for the coordination of the sub-ministries, and will perform oversight/regulatory duties towards these sub-ministries.