HAD Shakespeare lived in this day and age, he would have been surprised how remarkably close his famous quote from the tragic play Hamlet comes to depict the wrath our sheepishly feeble bureaucracy endure at the hands of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.

The only difference, perhaps, is that there is no Polonius here to tell his lord the chief minister, “though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” For what else would explain Khattak’s solo war with his own bureaucracy.

Now in his tenth month as chief minister, the chief minister’s flare-ups and tongue-lashing of the officers serving his administration has assumed infamy in its own way.

Bureaucracy is abuzz with the way a seemingly impatient chief minister going nuclear dissing officers serving him on one issue or the other -- from non compliance, to being inefficient, dillydallying, and sleeping over files for too long. There are stories galore and personal accounts of officers who have faced anger.

And whenever he goes ballistic, his anger, some officers complain, knows no bound. Some of the officers, who have suffered his anger, volunteered to bow out with dignity, others have chosen to swallow the bitter pill of humiliation, keep quite and bide time, a few others -- and there are quite a few of them -- seeing the daylight wisdom have buckled down and agreed to toe the line.

There was another set of officers, the ones who had known the 64-year-old lanky politician from Manki and felt uncomfortable working with him, opted to work on the sideline or leave quietly for the leafy capital of Pakistan.

As one disgruntled officer put it, there was no fun playing in an under-19 team.

But for the large majority of the officers, who stayed on, to work with the new dispensation, their relationship with the executive has not been easy and happy. But some of those, who had the spine to dissent, the reaction was nasty.

The Civil Secretariat, the administrative nerve centre of this province, resounds with stories of how a secretary was threatened to be thrown out of office, others were called in person or called on phone to get an earful.

But there were others too, a police officer who couldn’t pull along and politely asked to be relieved, was dragged through the mud in the media.

Disgusted, the officer tendered resignation. Luckily for him, Chief Secretary, Mohammad Shehzad Arbab, did not pass it on.

A story doing the rounds also speaks of how a committee comprising officers was pressured to nail down a particular officer not on the best of terms with the chief executive.

Things would still have been under wraps, had the latest casualty of the chief minister’s ire not been the chief secretary himself. That the relationship between the two top pillars of the executive had been strained for quite some time was known to all.

Arbab was construed as Imran’s man, who, it was believed, was directly reporting all things KP to Imran or his pointsman for KP, Jehangir Khan Tareen.

To make matters worse for the chief secretary, Imran told him in the presence of his handpicked chief minister, to make his own team and assured that there would be no political interference.

Not long after that, the chief secretary discovered how difficult it was playing on difficult pitch when he lost one wicket after another.

To be sure, the chief minister thundered publicly, how the bureaucracy was not listening to him, how files were being delayed and his orders not obeyed, scolding officers for inefficiency and corruption and setting deadlines after deadlines to improve or leave.

Things however, came to a head after one stormy session in Islamabad, attended by Imran, his right-hand-man, Jehangir Tareen, CM Khattak and Chief Secretary Arbab.

The tussle over amendments in the Rules of Business 2013 on whether or not summaries be routed through the chief secretary or sent directly to the chief minister, drew the final curtains on an uneasy relationship between the two.

A fly on the wall said the chief minister unilaterally changed the rules in his own handwriting duly recorded in the minutes of the eight-member committee to which he had previously agreed.

The chief secretary returned the summary, pointing out the chief minister could not alter minutes of the meeting.

So, when the matter went before the Islamabad meeting, the chief minister denied having agreed with the recommendations and alleged that the minutes had been wrongly recorded; offending the chief secretary who thought Khattak was questioning his integrity.

That was the end of it, the chief minister made it clear to his leadership they would have to make a choice. As for him, he was done with the chief secretary. On his part, the chief secretary told the PTI leadership, he could no longer pull along with Khattak.

To add insult to injury, private television network, quoting sources in the Chief Minister’s House, said Arbab had been given two days to pack up and leave his office, accusing him of delaying files.

A distraught officer thus wrote; “Sir! While joining public service we opt to confront frustrations, disappointments and, at times, helplessness. Every occasion causes impact and leaves scars.

The resultant depressions are neutralised by the silver linings which give us courage and strength to pull on. But last night the silver lining faded. It was engulfed by a thick black smoke.

Values of courtesy and decency were all put on fire. With their idiocy, they generated worst news and delivered the most dangerous blow to governance in the province. Sir! I have lost all hope and repent the days and months lost to their mediocrity and shallowness. God bless you.”

Much to the chief minister’s chagrin, Arbab did not pack up and leave within two days. But all are awaiting the arrival of a new chief secretary and if Imran has his way again, he would want Amjad Ali Khan, federal secretary privatisation, to be the new man in.

The federal government is believed to be playing hard ball over PTI’s choice but if Amjad does make it, in the words of one senior party leader, the cabinet would be surprised and “not pleasantly.” Amjad is a no-nonsense bureaucrat, who does not take things lying down.

Be that as it may, the problem is that PTI leadership’s policy of countervailing the chief minister and his cabinet to ensure clean, effective and corruption-free governance through administrative means by installing officers of its choice, has not worked, much to the detriment of development in already militancy-hit KP.