The Administrative Reforms Pakistan Needs

The Prime Minister's Secretariat, Constitution Avenue, Islamabad

Over the course of Pakistan’s history, the steel frame of the civil service that Pakistan inherited from colonial India has become rusty.  The ineffectiveness of state institutions now seen is due to the diminishing capacity, over-politicization and corruption of the bureaucracy. These act to seriously undermine Pakistan’s economic, social and political development. Reform measures must be taken to counteract the failure of Pakistan’s state institutions to protect the welfare of its citizens, provide adequate social services and promote the rule of law immediately.

It is clear that the administrative structure is suffering from obsolescence and needs to be overhauled. Following are reforms that  should be implemented:

• Public organizations need to lose their traditional bureaucratic structure, becoming more lateral systems of shared power and teamwork as comprehensive, centralized systems of public service delivery are increasingly unsustainable. Steep hierarchies cause time delays and inefficiency. They need to be “trimmed” so that any unnecessary levels are eliminated and a more streamlined task force is created. Power should be decentralized, with teams assigned to various projects, each given the autonomy required to be effective.
• A management-by-objectives approach should be adopted to increase productivity, promoting high levels of participation and establishing clear and measurable objectives throughout an organization. Broad-range goals should be clarified and communicated in an easy-to-understand manner to all administrative workers.  Realistic objectives need to be drawn up for a given time period, during which progress should be monitored by a neutral party. The objective-setting process needs to be decentralized, so that each unit and sub-unit of the organization can identify specific objectives related directly to them, giving them a clear focus of how to contribute.
• In order to motivate employees, government agencies need to focus on improvement of the individual’s work life. The key to improving productivity is having satisfied and motivated workers. Job-enrichment efforts can include a high degree of autonomy for employees, clear feedback on the quality of their work, and increased opportunities for utilization of individual talents and skills.
• To bolster the MBO approach, and the employee motivation effort, merit considerations should be emphasized. High-level performance can be encouraged by a reward or incentive-based system that simultaneously motivates workers to accept more responsibility and work efficiently, preventing waste and acting responsively to the citizenry, and discouraging absenteeism, accidents, etc. Rewards may be monetary (such as performance and piecework bonuses, gainsharing plans) or other incentives such as time off, or suggestion award programs, employee recognition programs, and behavioral awards. These incentive programs should seek to inculcate pride of performance and contribution in employees.
• Government agencies need to form meaningful partnerships with other institutions and citizens in response to public problems such as lack of development, education, and basic necessities. NGOs have become significant players in the country’s development arena, and partnering with them can allow the government to assess a wide range of issues and remote areas, lessen the burden and prevent overlap in development efforts, cutting back on waste. This would further the goal of ensuring public welfare, transportation, health care, etc. are provided in a cost-efficient and effective way.
• Advances in information technology should be embraced, as they not only increase capacity for communication and information sharing but also expose public administrators to more opportunities and allow information to be shared with the public. Combined, these two factors can redefine the way an organization works. Since information will be available to all, there will be a certain measure of accountability as well as decentralization. Also, the free flow of information will enable clarity of goals, and opportunities for dialogue and citizen input.
• Public organizations often suffer from stagnation. That is, they find themselves unable to adapt to a changing environment and move beyond old structures and methods. One way to combat this is by encouraging innovation in public servants. Innovation is a way of adding public value or serving more efficiently in the public interest. A ‘sustaining innovation’ approach can be adopted by removing barriers to excellence, providing greater flexibility, and placing the opportunity for innovation in the hands of those at all levels. This can help deal with ambiguity more efficiently, and anticipate change.

The goal is to create organizations that have a strong sense of their goals, are decentralized and incentive-based, and as is purported by advocates of New Public Management, have a dedication to accountability, responsiveness and outcome-based governance. To accomplish this, managing-for-results should be made  top priority,  every member should feel a sense of ownership of performance management and measurement activities, and work processes, internal structures and lines of responsibility need to be redesigned to support performance measurement systems.

Additionally, alliances should be sought with partners in service delivery, and ties should be developed between counterpart organizations. This is all a part of a system-thinking approach that needs to be adopted to understand the influence and impact of individual programs. Establishment of clear, measurable performance goals and objectives is vital. For the afore-mentioned performance goals, appropriate targets should be identified. The system-thinking approach entails keeping the environment of the organization in view. External threats and opportunities, as well as internal strengths and weaknesses should be assessed realistically. Data collection teams should rely on only the most reliable sources, and there should be a focused approach to all issues, with an emphasis on result-maximization.