ISLAMABAD: The powerful bureaucracy has once again swung into action. Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal has been stripped off his role in giving a shape to the National Executive Service, a new cadre of super bureaucrats.

It was announced by the minister on Wednesday that the government had decided to create a pool of professionals to effectively and speedily run government affairs. According to him, the professionals would be hired on market-based remunerations and key performance indicators would determine their continuation in jobs assigned to them. On Thursday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif constituted a committee headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to develop the structure and work out salary packages, jobs required and key performance indicators for the new bureaucratic layer. But Mr Iqbal has been left out of the committee which comprises Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid, MNA Danyal Aziz, Wapda Chairman Zafar Mahmood, Cabinet Secretary Akhlaq Ahmed Tarar, Housing Secretary Mohammad Younas Dagha and Secretary to the President Ahmad Farooq. It will be called “Committee on position-based and performance-based allowances”.

“It is a babus’ committee, and not of politicians,” retorted Ahsan Iqbal when asked by journalists why he was not in the committee despite the fact that the NES proposal had been made by him.

A political analyst said Mr Iqbal was correct. Although the committee would be headed by the finance minister and there were two parliamentarians in it, most of its members were bureaucrats, he added.

Mr Iqbal had said on Wednesday that a previous civil service reform effort involving monetisation of transport facility for top bureaucrats had been massively misused and promised that the next round of reforms would be more transparent and effective.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2014