LAHORE: The federal government continues to perform poorly as far as transparency in its working is concerned as it has received 21% score in a scorecard for 2015-16 prepared by Pildat, an Islamabad-based think-tank.

The score for the parameter is one percent down even from 22% the government had got for the year 2014-15. The main reason being absence of a progressive Right to Information law, reveals the scorecard.

A draft right to information bill had been passed by the Senate Standing Committee on Information back in February 2014 and since then it is pending for want of cabinet’s approval to be tabled in the parliament.

Pildat says the objective behind preparing the scorecard for 25 parameters is to assess the quality of governance for highlighting key areas of strengths and potential areas requiring improvement in the quality of governance.

Pildat scorecard for 2015-16

The parameters included foreign policy management, autonomy of regulatory bodies, efficient & economic public procurement, immunization of children, disaster preparedness and management, healthcare, population control, environment sustainability, inflation control, unemployment management, investment friendliness, tax collection, farm development, national defence, peace, stability and order, and anti-corruption.

Below average performance was recorded in six parameters – use of technology for better governance, merit-based recruitment and promotions, education, poverty alleviation, water resources development and management, and transparency.

Overall the quality of federal governance scored 51% in 2015-2016, 7% up from 2015-15, with management of inflation getting the highest score of 87%.

Improvements in the management of monetary policy and the global fall in oil prices resulted in a low average rate of inflation of 2.8% in 2015-2016. The second highest score was observed in peace, stability and order (73%) owing to the decrease in the number of insurgents/terrorists’ hits and third highest to healthcare (68%) due to decreasing rates of infant and maternal mortality.

Improvements have also been recorded in rule of law, management of economy, social indicators, service delivery and administrative effectiveness.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2017