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MERITORIOUS recruitment, effective revenue collection and efficient delivery of public services are among the most important indicators for measuring institutional development and good governance. Unfortunately, these indicators are missing; although to varying degrees, in all the provinces. The situation in Sindh is particularly grim.
The government, in many instances, seems to be running public affairs less in the spirit of the law and more in the style of a feudal or wadera — oblivious to the niceties of rules and unfettered by the imperatives of public interest. Three examples pertaining to three key areas, revenue, recruitment and administration, will suffice to make this point.
The first case of wadera-style governance is exemplified by the Sindh Revenue Board, the province’s prime revenue collection agency. The SRB has, for long, been run under an ‘acting’ or ‘temporary’ chairman.
Sindh’s government is mired in nepotism.
After the death of the previous chairman, a selection committee headed by the chief secretary recommended, out of many contenders, Misri Ladhani for the post. The new chairman, a competent retired FBR officer, had the right qualifications. But barely a week had passed before he decided to quit, supposedly on account of personal reasons. He was obviously asked to leave. Why? Because, while qualified, he may not have matched the ‘actual’ criterion for his position: being pliant.
As a result, the secretary to the chief minister is holding the additional charge of SRB chairman. But the de facto chairman is a contractual ‘adviser’ who has been ‘recalled’ after the resignation of the new chairman. Which raises the question: if the province’s key revenue-collection agency is to be perpetually run under a makeshift arrangement, then why make such a hue and cry about the paucity of funds for development, and why blame Islamabad for ‘holding back’ the province’s due share in the federal kitty?
Take the case of another key institution: the Sindh Public Service Commission. It is a constitutional body formed in pursuance of Article 240. Its mandate is to ensure merit-based induction in provincial services; hence, it must guard its independence. Therefore, the law provides for the appointment of the chairman and members of the commission, and strict regulations ensure transparency and fairness in recruitment. But all that is in theory. In practice, the commission is no more than a wing of the executive and, hence, malleable.
In fact, the reality of the commission’s independence vis-à-vis the executive was recently revealed when the previous chairman, Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan, retired chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court, refused to ‘fall in line’ and faced expulsion. The law protected the chairman’s five-year tenure. The government, therefore, threatened to reduce the chairman’s term from five to two years and clip the commission’s power of selection in grades 16 and above. A nasty legal and constitutional battle would have ensued as a result, had the embattled but prudent chairman not voluntarily stepped down after having served only six months.
The government may have won the day. But the commission has since lost its autonomy and efficiency. As ever, its members are being inducted, in violation of the rules, at the will of the executive. Recently, a member has been appointed to the commission who previously served at a junior level in the prison service.
Similarly, disaffected candidates are filing petitions in the courts, questioning the transparency and fairness of the examinations held under the commission. Given the situation, one can’t resist asking: if the credentials of the commission’s members and the authenticity of the selection process are widely perceived to be tainted, then how will the provincial service ever be cleansed of nepotism and corruption?
Finally, take the case of how wadera-style governance plays out in public administration. The sudden transfer of Karachi Commissioner Asif Hyder Shah, an honest and efficient officer, is a recent case in point. Indeed, Karachi has seen a number of commissioners come and go in recent times, notwithstanding the fact that it desperately needs meaningful policy initiatives in conjunction with a steady administration to tackle its countless problems.
Likewise, Sindh’s rural population suffers a myriad of health issues, mainly because doctors won’t report to rural hospitals. Worse, student drop-out rates at the primary and secondary levels are on the rise, largely due to absconding, or ‘ghost’, teachers with powerful political connections.
Lamentably, even key positions in Sindh’s public universities are offered to well-connected, rather than deserving, persons. A veritable, epic power struggle is currently under way for the appointment of a new vice chancellor for the Dow University of Health Sciences.
It is time that the PPP leadership took account of the ills afflicting its government in Sindh — and prioritise that — before demanding accountability for offshore assets.
The writer is a lawyer and academic.
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2016
