What could be the barometer to adjudicate the difference between good governance and bad governance?

But apart from judging it from the standpoint of service delivery, efficiency and prompt action, for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa good or for that matter gud governance could be deceptively similar, though both words carry different meanings altogether. Good is good but in Pashto gud would mean ‘lame’, so if governance is good, it could be gud. So how can one tell the difference between the two? The difference may not be in how the two words are spelt but as they say, the taste of the pudding is in eating it. And here is an anecdote.

Back in March, 2011, a group of students from a private school visited the Chief Minister’s Secretariat with a written and signed petition, asking him to set up a zoo in Peshawar, which would have been the first in KP.

Chief Minister, Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, benevolent and courteous, pledged to set up the zoo in Peshawar and ordered the Wildlife Department to submit a report within one month.

Then began a long ping-pong, the usual bureaucratic rigmarole, in which files are tossed from one desk to another. It went between the department of the Wildlife Department, the Planning and Development, the office of the Additional Chief Secretary and Peshawar Development Authority.

The first issue that saw bureaucrats scratch their heads for eons was where to set it up. The site was moved from Peshawar to Jalozai, to Regi Model Town to Hayatabad. The estimated cost went up and down.

Then came the cost estimates. How much would it cost to build a zoo? And how much would it cost to buy animals and birds? What is the cost of an elephant? This, too, sent the bureaucracy into a tizzy.

And then came the last question. Do we really need a zoo? A senior officer joked, ‘look around’ do you need more ‘animals’. Mind you, the same set of officers never balked at the wisdom behind doling out money for graveyards in the chief minister’s own hometown of Mardan.

But since the chief minister had made a ‘commitment’ it had to be fulfilled. So, reluctantly and grudgingly, the bureaucracy forked out Rs20 million for the project, asking PDA to find a place for it.

But those who know how much the exotic animals cost would know the money was not enough to buy four beasts, let alone building a zoo and setting up the infrastructure. The story thus told would fall into the category of what we call in Pashto gud governance.

So, a desperate PDA looked out for donors, and out went a letter to the government of Punjab to ‘donate’ twelve pairs of animals and birds from its sixteen zoos. A text message to one of the new and upcoming politician from Mardan, Nawabzada Arsala Khan Hoti did the trick.

The same day, barely hours after the request had been made through the text, came in a call from secretary to the Chief Minister, Punjab, Dr. Tauqir Shah, who informed that the CM, Punjab, who was in Toba Tek Singh that day, approved the request through BBM (Blackberry Message) and a letter would follow through in an hour.

And so it was. In about an hour, a letter came in, the government of Punjab was ‘gifting’ a few animals and birds for the people of Peshawar ‘free of cost’ and asked the compliance report should be furnished within three days.

The whole bureaucratic approval took less than a day. No summary was moved or approved. No meetings were held. A flurry of calls ensued and the animals arrived sooner than later. Easy to say this was not at least gud governance.

The Chief Minister, KP, decided to call his counterpart in the Punjab, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, for the goodwill gesture and it was ‘good’. But what was gud too, was that one of the officers in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat was asked to ask the Wildlife Department, KP to donate a few ‘pheasants’ to the zoo and demonstrate similar efficiency. The officer promised. It didn't happen. This is very very gud.