ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: President Gen Pervez Musharraf, dissatisfied with the performance of the government and semi-government organisations, has asked the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) to devise broad institutional reforms in public sector organisations.

Official sources told Dawn on Friday that the reforms were intended “to promote greater transparency and accountability” in all government and semi-government corporations. NRB officials said that after the completion of the first two phases of the devolution process, emphasis has shifted to refining political, administrative, financial, law enforcement and legal structures and systems at federal, provincial and district levels.

Dr Ishrat Hussain, former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, too is engaged in a similar exercise.

In his recent meetings with the top bureaucrats, Gen Musharraf is said to have observed that lethargy and neglect on the part of government departments and agencies was spreading despondency in the masses. One source quoted him as saying that neglect has made people lose faith in the institutions and that something must be done to make the bureaucracy treat them fairly to win back their confidence.

A concerned official said objectives of the good governance could be best achieved by introducing pro-poor policies. The NRB was seeking financial and technical assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for devising civil service reforms and achieving the objectives of good governance.

He said that the UNDP was expected to provide Rs235 million grant to the NRB for the purpose.

The NRB has conducted a number of institutional capacity building studies and now it intends to develop a comprehensive concept of capacity development that besides creating greater ownership also enhances individual, organisation and societal capacities to effectively participate with clarity about rights and responsibilities in self-governance.

The new task of the NRB, he said, also includes the pace of federal to provincial devolution and ensuring e-governance by building IT capacities at the provincial and district levels with the objectives of transparency, efficiency and improved service delivery.

However, the official said that a complete decentralisation was required to expect improvement in the working of government departments and agencies.