ENTREPRENEURS seeking to invest in Sindh often discover that raising capital is a lot easier than obtaining approvals. A businessman wanting to establish a warehouse, rice mill, cold storage facility or small factory must navigate a maze of forms, files and no-objection certificates (NOCs). Applications move from one desk to another, letters are issued to multiple departments, and potential investors become de facto couriers across govern-ment offices.
Months pass. Costs accumulate. And, opportunities disappear. The tragedy is that this delay is rarely the result of malicious intent. It is the predictable outcome of a system that has been designed around paper rather than facilitation.
The contrast with the private sector is striking. Modern corporations routinely make multimillion-rupee decisions through integrated digital workflows. Relevant stakeholders receive the same information simultaneously, decisions are time-stamped, accountability is clear, and progress is visible to all concerned. The public sector, meanwhile, continues to operate through sequential file movement, fragmented approvals and limited transparency. The result is not merely inconvenience. It is an economic cost borne by citizens, investors and the province itself.
Pakistan already has sufficient proof that transformation is possible. The Web-Based One Customs (WeBOC) system has already demonstrated that digital workflows can significantly reduce processing times while improving transparency and account-ability. Estonia, Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) did not become leaders in digital governance because they possessed superior bureau-cracies. They became leaders because they redesigned processes before digitising them.
The challenge for Sindh is not techno-logical. It is institutional. The province does not require another committee or another pilot project destined to remain a presentation. It requires a permanent mechanism responsible for redesigning government workflows, integrating departmental systems and ensuring accountability for service delivery. The proposal for establishing a Directorate of Government Automation deserves serious consideration for precisely this reason.
The larger issue extends beyond administrative efficiency. Investment decisions are influenced by the ease with which government can be accessed. A province where approvals take months will struggle to compete with jurisdictions where approvals take days. Large-scale investors may find ways to navigate complexity. Small and medium enterprises often cannot. Yet, it is these businesses that generate employment, expand the tax base and sustain local economic growth.
The debate, therefore, is not about computers replacing paper files. It is about whether government exists to move paper or to move decisions.
Sindh’s future competitiveness will depend increasingly on the answer to this vital conundrum. In the present digital age, the speed of governance is becoming inseparable from the speed of development.
Yazdaan Noor Memon
Karachi
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2026
