ISLAMABAD: In the face of the serious problem of brain drain, the government has decided to create another layer of super bureaucratic cadre to be called National Executive Service and set up a corruption helpline to improve governance.

Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal told a meeting of the Senate’s financing committee on the budget for the next financial year on Wednesday that the brain drain had become such a serious issue that the position of chief economist of the Planning Commission had been lying vacant for several years.

The statement was made apparently because of severe criticism of the government for not appointing professionals on key positions even after one year in office as a result of which work was being badly affected.

He said a former deputy chairman of the planning commission had invited applications for the post of the chief economist and a committee interviewed candidates but could not find a suitable person for the job.

Mr Iqbal said he himself invited fresh applications, but the committee could not select one during almost a year.

This, he said, was because the pay scale (Rs400,000 package) MP-1 (management position) offered by the government for private sector professionals was acceptable only to mid-level executives and not senior professionals.

Senator Salim Mandviwala, finance minister in the former PPP government, said the PML-N was criticising his party’s government for offering huge salary increases, but now regarding the MP-1 scales as low.

The planning minister, however, argued that salary increases should be linked to performance and should not be for everyone.

Mr Iqbal said he would propose to the prime minister to create a pool of professionals to attract quality from the private sector for government jobs and a new executive cadre was being considered for that purpose.

He said that even secretary level bureaucrats could be offered to join the NES with lucrative remuneration if they considered themselves to be competent enough and prepared to give up the security of government job.

He said the pool of professionals would be selected through a stringent process and their performance would be evaluated on a quarterly basis under key performance indicators (KPIs). The scheme which was being developed would be discussed at a seminar and then presented to the prime minister for approval.

The minister agreed that the previous reform process – monetisation of transportation for top bureaucrats – had been massively misused. Officials were getting big allowances but were also using official vehicles. He promised that the next round would be transparent and result-oriented.

He said the government was also working on setting up a corruption helpline so that anybody having information about corruption in a government department or service delivery could report to the government which would investigate the complaint and take action.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2014