THE recent moves by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to stamp his leadership on a fractious cabinet are welcome, but more is going to be required in the days to come if the ship of government is to be put back on an even keel.

The latest meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy saw a few decisive decisions, and an earlier meeting between the prime minister and the minister for planning also saw a firm and unambiguous statement of support for the oversight functions being performed by the Planning Commission.

Removal of the managing director of the Nandipur power plant, that has become an albatross around the government’s neck, had become necessary following the prolonged failure to make the plant operational and to rectify its problems.

The managing director was unable to fix the problems of the plant, and had also failed to locate a contractor to run the project, despite being given a number of opportunities to do so. The step itself comes a little late in the day, and had this been a purely private-sector project, it would in all likelihood, have been taken much sooner.

But the step is a modest one compared to the scale of the challenges that the many failures of the Nandipur project have thrown up.

For one, the whole episode, coupled with other failures to smoothly implement large projects in the public sector, has cast a cloud over the capacity of the government to implement the bouquet of CPEC projects under its charge.

The rivalry between the ministers playing out so publicly is also unlikely to recede following the prime minister’s rebuke — the challenge requires a chief executive who is less aloof from the affairs of state, meaning Mr Sharif will have to change his style of leadership if he wants his government officials to focus on solving problems rather than settling scores with each other.

The Nandipur project has become an emblem of the government’s ineptitude, and a lightning rod for its internal wrangling.

Fixing the problem is a big task now, but it is also important to remember that the many failures that went into the making of this debacle will not go away even when the project is finally operational.

Eventually, what needs to be fixed is not just one power plant, but the way the government operates — a mid-course correction that will take more than just a lecture.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2015

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