Apropos the article ‘Dream gone sour’ (Sept 4), one agrees with the writer’s apt observation that the development bureaucracy in Sindh is in a total mess. The provincial government needs to implement a new approach towards enhancing accountability in its development planning and service delivery.
Past initiatives to resolve the problems that pertain to poor governance and corruption have too often focussed only on administrative actions, such as developing new organisations or improving the institutional capacity through imported technologies and techniques.
The solutions that need to be implemented must dig deeper and confront the incentives and preferences of both citizens and civil servants as well as reshape the methods in which these actors interact.
The following strategies need to be adopted in this regard: 1) allow citizens to monitor frontline service providers through e-feedback mechanisms; 2) further devolve authority and financial resources to local levels; 3) improve the civil servants’ capacity and behaviour through pay-for-performance management schemes; 4) reduce the interface between government officials and citizens by creating one-stop shops and outsource service provision to private and civil society actors.
There may be other suggestions as well because governance in Sindh is both a macro as well as a micro management issue.
Aisha Iftikhar
Karachi
Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2020
