LAHORE, Oct 31: National Commission for Government Reforms chairman Dr Ishrat Husain has said reforms are needed for addressing shortcomings in the existing government system which falls short of expectations of people without influence.

Speaking on “National Governance: Problems of Reforms” during a meeting of the English Speaking Union here on Wednesday, he said the commission had identified shortcomings in seven spheres of the system because the benefits of economic growth had not been properly distributed both in society as well as different regions of the country.

The under-privileged sections of society and backward areas of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan had not benefitted from economic development.

He said the government was not required to run business because its employees were not interested in income generation because of being assured salary on the first day of every month even without doing any work.

He said the district government system introduced in 2001 was experiencing teething troubles and required to be reviewed. The district governments were executing the development projects in a better manner than the provincial governments because of involvement of communities in the process. The opponents of politically-elected nazims, however, complained of being neglected. Neutral administrators were required for district governments to make the development funds equally accessible to all.

He said policy-making and regulatory wings of ministries required to be bifurcated and stakeholders required to be involved in decisions related to tariffs. The autonomous bodies were required to be autonomous and the ministries were not required to take their policy decisions. The government required to develop partnership with NGOs and charitable in health, education and social sectors because they were working in these sectors in a better manner.

Stressing the need for better service structure for the provincial civil service and non-civil service employees, he pointed out that only 2,000 CSP officers had a sound service structure and good promotion chances. Around 80 per cent of 18,000 non-CSP government employees in grade 17 and above were not satisfied with the terms and conditions of service.

The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council had a large number of foreign trained PHDs, but only 50 per cent had been promoted from one grade to another during the past 30 years.

He said information technology was required to be utilised for ensuring transparency in government operations for checking corruption on account of discretion and secrecy. The decision on a file at ministerial level took around a month due to large number of officials involved. The number of stages in decision-making process required to be reduced by cutting the number of officials involved in the process and officials at lower level required to be authorised to take decisions in routine matters.

He said the employees posted in districts required to be under district governments. The schools required to be administered by the respective district governments, colleges by provincial governments and universities by the federal government. Basic Health Units and district hospitals required to be managed by district governments, teaching hospitals by provincial government and specialised medical facilities by the federal government.

Water and sanitation and solid waste management required to be entrusted to town and tehsil municipal administrations and highways to the provincial government. District governments should maintain the road network within the districts.

He said the National Finance Commission was gradually increasing the share of provincial governments in resources. The share of federal government in resources was being reduced from 62 per cent and provinces raised from 38 per cent to 50:50 next year.

He said investment was required in human resource development to make the economy knowledge-based to facilitate development. He pointed out that Korea had increased its per capita income to $25,000 by bringing all its citizens working in the US back by offering them higher salaries.

Answering questions, he said the development budget was being increased more rapidly compared to the defence budget. The development allocation had increased from Rs100 billion to Rs450 billion during the past four years while allocation for defence had been increased from Rs200 billion to Rs250 billion. He said the judiciary and parliament required to be strong and independent and graduation condition for election to assemblies should be waived because around half of the population was illiterate.

English Speaking Union, Lahore Branch, President S Wajahat Husain said in his address of welcome that good governance and political stability were the pillars of any national state. The two pillars had, however, not attained stability in Pakistan. Deteriorating governance problems had led to serious law and order situation in the country. The country had inherited good systems which could not be maintained satisfactorily by successive governments. Results of devolution were also very controversial.