Any organisation with its name beginning with Pakistan screams of danger, disturbance and deterioration. That is really sad but really true. These days the headline grabber for pathetic performance is Pakistan Railways. After Pakistan International Airlines and Pakistan Steel Mills and so on, Railways after a tough competition of who is the worst of them all, has finally won the attention of the media and the government by getting another Rs11 billion to bail out an organisation so derailed that it is difficult to envision a complete turnaround for a public sector enterprise breathing on financial respirator. The story of these enterprises is familiar, politicisation, corruption, mismanagement and incompetence are the common denominators in most of them that are responsible for this organisational decay.
Various government officials have monopolised the asset base of railways. The railways club, a prime property of this entity, was given on lease at throwaway prices to Royal Palm Club and till date cases have been filed to contest this without any concrete result. Similarly, a lot of agricultural land, which is railway property, has been misused by politicians without any accountability. The other major asset, the locomotives, are no longer an asset but a liability. Out of the 500 only 200 are operational. What is happening to the remaining 300 nobody knows. Any organisation having 60 per cent machines defunct can never be viable. Every year we hear about replacement and repair MOUs being signed primarily with Chinese government with practically no improvement. Last year the poor quality of the locomotives brought was exposed in a huge scandal of corruption. Most of the 200 in operation are a victim of the indifference of people managing the affairs. The daily delays of trains and regular fatal accidents have made the life of the masses more miserable; however they have no substitute of long haul travel and thus bear this agony of poor service with another cry of helplessness.
The government has made some mumbling announcement of including people from the private sector in its board to make it more professional but this is not going to make an iota of difference. The 11 billion rupees has been handed over as a charity in the month of Ramadan with no plan of what is to be done with it and how to ensure that the organisation’s addiction to free money is reduced. There was no turnaround plan either made for it or asked from the management to reduce this dependency and thus the temporary ceasing of the hemorrhaging of the organisation is never going to be able to work on the deep down malaises eating up the enterprise. In another few months the desperate situation of an organisation sinking fast is going to resurface with a vengeance.
The unconditional doling of money always encourages indifference, beggary and a crippling of the real vibrancy of the people running any entity. The recent debacle in American recession is an example to learn from. The auto industry collapsed in the wake of a huge lack of consumer spending and financial sector deterioration. GM motors and Chrysler, who dominated the global and the American market share for decades, had been facing stiff competition from the Japanese and German auto rivals. Helped by government protection they had managed to keep up with the competition. However as the recession seeped in and the consumer decided to go for quality and affordability, the auto industry reached a stage of bankruptcy. The government had to step in to save this industry as the economy could not take the fall of these giants. The government lent them money only after the organisation made a presentation of a turnaround plan which detailed where the money would be spent and how it will increase the revenues while also showing a very stringent cost cutting plan of layoffs and expense control. The government set up clear audit guidelines of releasing money in phases depending on the successful completion of the turnaround plan. They called them stress tests to see how the crisis will be managed and only when the test has been passed will the second phase of money be given. With this time bound plan the auto industry in the last year or so has come out of its dire straits and has started making some profits as well.
With a complete absence of any planning, the fate of railways and many other such sick or dying organisations is bound to get in deeper mess. The state of these enterprises is in a way reflective of the state of the country. With no vision and plan of how to cover the huge deficits facing the country and a complete dependence on aid and borrowed money, the country is barely surviving day to day and getting into deeper distress. Like the railways, the country is manned by people who are indifferent and incompetent and who have no stakes or fear of mismanaging the country. As history dictates, these leaders when they lose power, simply escape to their penthouses abroad leaving their countrymen in anguish and misery. Similarly the maximum damage people managing railways will personally face is a few people transferred to another division or at most made OSD. With nothing to fear or lose for their wrongdoings, a derailed organisation will remain off track.
The writer is a consultant and CEO of FranklinCovey Pakistan and can be reached at [email protected]
