Damned if it does, damned if I doesn’t
Politicians coming to power have frequently used bureaucrats to bend and break the laws to fulfill their wishes. This has led to grave social consequences. Honest government officers who were sidelined were demoralized. Corruption became rampant both among the politicians and of bureaucracy. While ministers used federal and provincial secretaries to carry out their illegal orders, the ruling party’s parliamentarians considered it their right to direct Deputy Commissioners and District Police Officers to appoint SHOs, Tehsildars and Patwaris of their own choice in their constituencies. This helped ruling party politicians to settle their scores with their political opponents and oblige their cronies.
One cannot but support Imran Khan when he says that he wants to depoliticize the bureaucracy and ensure merit-based appointments. It was also commendable on the part of the Prime Minister to address a gathering of government servants on the issue. Bureaucracy however is one part of the problem while ruling party leaders are the other. There is an equally dire need to persuade the ruling party’s parliamentarians to abandon the culture of patronage. As things stand the PTI’s lawmakers and ministers continue to approach government servants to influence appointments and transfers in their constituencies
The government should have rewarded two Deputy Commissioners in Punjab who complained against the ruling party’s legislators seeking such appointments if it really wanted to depoliticize bureaucracy. They have instead been issued show cause notices prior to removal from service. A DPO summoned by Punjab Chief Minister for failing to oblige an influential person also faces disciplinary action. These actions stand in contradiction to Imran Khan’s stated desire to put an end to the politicization of bureaucracy.
Lecturing government servants alone is not enough. Equally important is for the Prime Minister to stop the PTI law makers and ministers who to continue to use political leverage to have their blue eyed boys given jobs in their constituencies to dole out favours to their cronies and persecute their opponents in violation of rule of law and good governance.
