Not the optimal solution

IT has been reported that the National Reconstruction Bureau is considering a proposal to revise the retirement age of civil servants from 60 to 63.

Nothing could be farther from good reason. The fact is that this proposal, if implemented, could deliver a body blow to the already crippled civil service structure.

The suggestion appears to rest on three distinct arguments. One, life expectancy has increased; retiring secretaries are often very fit at 60 and therefore it would be better to utilise their services instead of putting them out to pasture. Two, the granting of extensions causes heartburn among those not chosen for this favour, and a general extension shall add a healing touch by eliminating the element of nepotism. Three, the move will reduce the pension burden by delaying retirement-related payouts.

All three arguments are patently erroneous. The life-expectancy argument is indeed used in developed countries but the reasons behind it are different. In Japan and France and elsewhere, low birth rates mean that there are not enough young workers in the system to support the greying population. Also, the economy often faces labour shortages. Raising the retirement age allows more people to work and reduces their burden of paying for the social benefits of retirees.

Granting extensions to some senior civil servants indeed breeds resentment but raising the retirement age for all is hardly the optimal solution. To begin with, this argument overstates the element of nepotism, implying that everyone with a sore heart also deserves an extension on merit. This may not be the case. Like all other decision-making at the highest level, any move towards a general extension has to be tempered with wisdom and prudence. Flexibility helps, wooden rules don’t. Granting extensions to some high-quality managers may indeed be required. Some officers recalled from retirement indeed merit the recall. Most unfortunately don’t.

To be fair, it may not be easy to let some really excellent officers go home, but then it is possible that their replacements, given the opportunity, may turn out to be better. The worst problem with this heartache argument is that a general amnesty shall facilitate the laggards and weaklings along with the best. This will cause more harm than benefit for the performance of all grade-22 officers can’t be above average.

The reduction-in-pensions argument is similarly false. It is not clear from what has been reported in the media if this proposal will apply only to the federal secretariat or to all government servants. Assuming it does apply to all and inductions at the lower level continue, the rise in the salary bill will far outweigh any gain in pension-reduction. If it applies only to federal secretaries, the reduction in pensions will be so small as to hardly matter.

The pensions argument may be valid if coupled with a ban on inductions but all of us know that this linkage is not possible because the government can’t stop new appointments. Too many young persons are looking for jobs. Promotions create vacancies that need to be filled. Also, stopping the inflow of young blood doesn’t make any organisational sense.

At best, the alleged gains from this proposal are minimal. Several clear and present negative consequences, on the other hand, shall cause much more harm. First, it will further demoralise the middle management. One of the great incentives of joining the civil service used to be the opportunity to man decision-making positions — assistant commissioner, deputy commissioner, provincial secretary, federal secretary — in the provincial and federal governments at a comparatively younger age with the commensurate chance to contribute. With such extensions, the chances of next-tier officers reaching top executive positions gets delayed by three years. The cascading effect will reach even the lowest tiers. Given the existing painful realities of low pay and reduced decision-making roles, the already low morale of officers will sink further.

Moreover, most observers know that federal officers from the provinces have become increasingly reluctant to serve in the federal government. The cost of life in the capital, challenges of relocation and housing issues are all major factors. But one of the more significant is that a relatively senior grade-20 officer from the provincial government becomes an ordinary middle-manager joint secretary, one among the anonymous many, in the federal capital.

Loss of ego is one aspect of this reduction in powers, the reduced ability to make decisions another. The only incentive is that the eventual rise to federal secretary or similarly substantial position shall be worth the effort. Raising the retirement age will only make officers serving in other cities even more unwilling to move to Islamabad.

The failure of the federal secretariat to attract officers from the provinces is a serious problem with major negative consequences. It reduces the quality of the human resource pool, especially in critical middle-management positions, available to the capital. The proposed change shall thus aggravate the problems of quality it aims to solve.

More importantly, the reluctance to move to Islamabad harms the spirit of federation. Officers used to serve in the provinces, preferably more than one, at the beginning of their careers. The final 10 years or so would be spent in the federal secretariat, where the breadth of their experience and exposure to grassroots problems would be brought to the decision-making table. But with officers from the provinces resisting relocation to Islamabad, the resulting absence of experience and empathy with provincial-level issues is likely to increase parochialism and reduce the spirit of accommodation in federal decision-making.

The proposal to raise the retirement age may, for the time being, apply only to the federal secretariat. But the contagion will not stop there. The power of the precedent will ensure that it soon reaches the federal line departments and then naturally the provincial secretariats and their line departments. The negative effects will rise exponentially as the numbers involved increase dramatically.

The federal government, like the provincial administrations, suffers from a dearth of quality officers. This proposal perhaps reflects a desperate desire to hold on to a few excellent officers. But the solution has to be more systemic and organised. Better salaries, reduced politicisation, organised succession, improved performance assessment, enhanced job scopes, revised business processes and increased delegation of powers can help. A blanket extension in the retirement age can only do harm.

zkb@cyber.net.pk

Money in a broken bank?

HEY, Mr Government, desperate for some cash to save the banks? Here’s an idea: auction a few ministries.

Every man, woman and dog with money wants the trappings of power. They want the outriders, the phalanx of flashing lights, the sycophants, the army of hangers-on. Money certainly has its uses but it becomes a bit boring after the first three Prados. Serving the people without having to actually serve is the next step up our inverse-Maslowian hierarchy of needs.

Think about it. Shamshad Akhtar is injecting liquidity into the system like a junkie with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Shaukat ‘Over my dead body’ Tareen has spelled out plans A, B and C. And yet, walk into your neighbourhood bank and fear is still oozing from the walls.

So why not fling open the doors of the presidential palace and send out a clarion call across the nation, a ministry can be yours for the taking. The price: cold, hard cash deposited in local banks. They will come from far and wide, with sacks and trunks and bags and Prado boot-fuls of cash.

Pakistan’s banks have a problem: the rupee is a terribly unattractive store of value at the moment. It’s simple math really. If you save Rs100 in a bank in Pakistan today, you will get less than Rs115 a year from now. With inflation hovering around 25 per cent, what you buy for Rs100 today will cost you Rs125 a year from now. But your Rs100 will only be worth Rs115 by then. Economists call it a negative real rate of interest; in layman’s terms, it means you are punished for keeping your savings in rupees.

By itself, a negative rate of savings is not catastrophic to a banking system. What matters are the other available investment opportunities — and intangibles such as fear. This is where our banking system is being walloped. With the rupee sliding towards oblivion against the dollar, you could have earned more than the 25 per cent annual rate of inflation in 10 months had you bought Rs100 worth of dollars in January. And having being rebuffed by the US, China, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, the incentive to dollarise your rupees has only grown stronger. Since July, Rs150bn has been withdrawn from the banking sector. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that money has left these shores.

(Disclaimer: I have no investments or assets, here or abroad. The cash I do have is parked in one of those faux-savings accounts which never seem to earn a profit. I have done this because I am young, unmarried and have a reasonable expectation of a rising income path in the medium to long term. However, I have taken the short-term precaution of withdrawing a sum of cash equivalent to six weeks of living expenses, in case there is a systemic shortage of cash in the weeks ahead.)

The fact is no one — not China, not the US, not Saudi Arabia, not the Gulf countries, not the IFIs — trusts Pakistan to behave responsibly if handed a fistful of dollars. This is their cumulative judgment from their accumulated experience of dealing with us for decades. Our friends are pushing us into the death grip of the IMF because they believe it, and it alone, has the capacity and inclination to keep up with a slippery, profligate character like Pakistan. The IMF will demand that Pakistan live within its means by spending as close to much as it earns. Translated into numbers, it will mean cutting the fiscal deficit to four per cent or less; raising the tax-to-GDP ratio from 10 per cent to 15 per cent; and slashing growth targets to near-recessionary levels of four per cent or less.

For any government, most of all a newly elected, transitionary government beset by multiple crises, the IMF pill is a bitter one. It will slash development and current expenditure, dramatically reducing the government’s capacity to dole out patronage and employment. But it is the price our friends are demanding to ever so slightly open the cash spigot to douse an impending balance-of-payments crisis.

Before we curse them, we should ask ourselves, are they the only ones pessimistic about Pakistan’s ability to reform itself? Every time the head of a bank or ‘Over my dead body’ Tareen or a minister appears on TV to assure us all will be well, I can’t help but wonder if their bank statements of the past 12 months would tell another story. Show us your money, Pakistanis should say, and we’ll show you our trust.

We will emerge from this mess eventually. Perhaps as early as mid-2010 we may touch the bottom of the economic trough of low growth and high inflation. We have 170 million people who need to be fed and clothed and whose needs have to be met. We have a reasonable export base. Building a mobile telecom and TV news industry from scratch is indicative of the adaptability of the private sector. Our world will not end with this crisis.

The question is, will we finally learn our lesson from the balance-of-payments crises that afflict us every decade? The solutions are not Nobel-prize material. Go back to the basics: shore up the agrarian base of the economy; branch out into simple manufacturing; widen the tax net; expand our exports; get serious about institutional reform — basically do the dull and boring stuff that doesn’t grab headlines.

But we are attracted to bling, to shiny, quick growth inside a bubble. In an unstable political system with alternating bouts of military and civilian rule, it makes sense: when your policy timeline is uncertain and your political shelf life unknown, you go for the biggest, brightest, shiniest trinkets you can have. Better to dazzle than to go out with a whimper. But with every iteration of the cycle of boom and bust the problems are magnified, raising the question of how much longer can we go on.

This is not wanton doom and gloom. There is a genuine reason to question our leaders’ inclination to reform this country as long as they believe that Pakistan is too big to fail. It’s bandied about with distressing ease. Give us your money, we have nuclear weapons. And Al Qaeda. And the world’s seventh-largest standing army. And did we mention nuclear weapons?

How long before our friends think, well, maybe they shouldn’t have any of those?

cyril.a@gmail.com

Crimes and punishment

THE new government has immense challenges to meet. The most formidable of these myriad tasks is combating terrorism, which the president and the prime minister say is their administration’s top priority.

The internal, regional and international situation also makes it imperative for the government to successfully eliminate terrorism.However, the drive against terrorism is intrinsically linked to the government’s ability to establish the rule of law and to restore the writ of the state in various parts of the country.

No government which fails to control day-to-day conventional crime can expect to succeed at the enormous task of breaking the back of terrorism. The ongoing fierce battle against a highly organised network of terrorists cannot be won if the state apparatus is allowed to become too weak to defeat an ordinary criminal in the street.

Rule of law and writ of the government are prerequisites for attracting foreign investment, encouraging remittances from expatriates, halting the brain drain and preventing flight of capital. Thus even the economic woes of the country cannot be effectively handled without an unflinching commitment to maintenance of law and order. This cannot be achieved without putting in the kind of effort and resources needed to establish a professional, meritorious, well-paid, well-trained and motivated police organisation capable of rising to the occasion.

The writ of law can be established if the law enforcers successfully open up no-go areas, control illicit arms, regulate illegal immigrants and effectively stop the menace of land-grabbing, encroachments, traffic violations, day-to-day incidents of street crime and highway robbery. This must be coupled with concerted efforts aimed at addressing the pervasive fear of crime and improving police-public relations.

Success on this front will not be forthcoming until an efficient and effective police organisation is established in the cities as well as rural areas. Various governments at the centre and in the provinces have in the past expressed the desire to maintain order and peace but their actions never matched their words. Successive governments have paid only lip service to this pressing issue. The government of the day has to make it its top priority.

Over the last few years the police have been diverted from their primary task of preventing and detecting crime to assisting their political bosses in achieving their own agendas. Every successive government has used the police as a convenient tool to crush political opponents, bolster its position and settle personal scores.

The previous government’s policies, in particular, made the police subservient to local influential persons. In a bid to keep the main political parties out of power, handpicked police officers were deputed to key field assignments to embolden local influentials of the government’s choice.

Crucial positions in the police hierarchy were doled out as favours. Incompetent, unscrupulous and unprofessional police officers ended up in positions much beyond their limited capabilities. Such practices have made the organisation highly politicised and badly eroded the writ of the state.

In most urban centres the bulk of police resources is diverted towards the protection of ‘VIPs’. Escorts and gunmen for politicians, religious leaders, police officers, judges, civil servants and anybody who is somebody are a major drain on institutional resources. Some religious leaders and status-conscious politicians have more policemen in their service than the entire functional strength of a medium-size police station. This has to be discouraged.

From the man in the street to the English-speaking chattering classes, people are quick to lash out against the increasing lawlessness but make little or no effort to respect the law. From ordinary traffic violations to flagrant disregard for building-control regulations, we take pride in our ability to bypass clearly laid down laws.

If we exhort the government of the day to make a clear shift from a politically motivated agenda to a crime-control agenda, citizens must shun the feudal and macho mindset as well. There is a need to develop a culture where laws are enforced without fear or favour and no exceptions are tolerated. The motorway police can serve as a perfect model where no political interference is brooked and police officers enforce the highway code without any discrimination.

It is high time to take corrective steps and stop the relentless decline. The new government has to rise above conventional petty politics and institutionalise a culture of merit in the police organisation. The government can hope to get long-term results if it shows transparency and fairness in recruitment, promotion, reward and punishment, and discourages political interference in operational matters of law enforcement.

The police leadership and policymakers in the government need to ensure that the police are provided with latest the technology and equipment required for prevention and detection of crime. Use of scientific methods and forensic facilities will not only improve chances of detection but increase convictions in the courts and deter potential delinquents from offending. As things stand, policing is heavily dependent on the physical deployment of policemen. Surveillance through closed-circuit television (CCTV) and other electronic methods is almost non-existent.

Even some private hospitals and corporate offices have far more sophisticated security equipment than the police. The Karachi-based Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has better gadgets and computer-based support than the capital city police of Karachi. Although the police have been provided huge quantities of automatic weapons and ammunition, the expenditure on modern surveillance, security and crime-detection equipment is proportionately much lower.

A neglected, ill-equipped, unprofessional, politically manipulated and operationally restrained police organisation is bound to fail in establishing the writ of the state. This will encourage armed groups to establish their areas of influence and create states within the state which may serve as safe havens for militant groups and terrorists. Consequently it will become extremely difficult for the law enforcers to police those areas. Conversely, an efficient, impartial and operationally independent police organisation will be capable of offering solutions to this pernicious problem in these trying circumstances.

The writ of the state can be established if enforcement of law is not subservient to political expediency. This challenge has to be met and it is still possible to do so.

The writer is a senior superintendent of police in Sindh.

shaikhsp@yahoo.com

Right’s attack on Obama identity

A YEAR or two ago, if you’d told me that Barack Obama would be leading John McCain by a seemingly comfortable margin with two weeks to go and asked me what, in their desperation, the Republicans would be talking about to try and scare my fellow Americans into voting against him, I’d have said race.

After all, Republicans have race-baited in one form or other in most of our presidential contests since Richard Nixon’s time, so it would have seemed impossible to me that they’d miss the chance to do so at a time when Democrats had actually gone to the trouble of nominating an African-American candidate.

It’s true that we’re hearing racial-code talk here and there. But the main fear tactic being employed now is something else. It’s that Obama and his associates — and for that matter his supporters and even the regions of the country that he’s destined to carry — are anti-American.

Last Friday (Oct 17) at a rally in North Carolina, Sarah Palin told her audience that she was proud to be “with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.” She means here of course that there are anti-American areas of America, and they are where the liberals live, and the people there are voting for Mr Anti-America.

This was especially interesting coming from a woman whose husband, Todd Palin, was until just six years ago an enrolled member of a rightwing fringe political party that wanted the state of Alaska to secede from the US. But if you understand rightwing logic, then you’d know that Mr Palin had no choice but to join the Alaska Independence party in 1995, because by that time the America he thought he knew and loved had been brought to ruin by the liberals and socialists and America-haters. See?

Likewise, earlier this month, Joe McCain, the brother of John, said that Alexandria and Arlington, the two major cities in the northern Virginia suburbs that lie just across the Potomac River from Washington, were “communist country” as far as he was concerned. His brother lives in Arlington. A McCain spokeswoman offered a wan apology at the time, but lo and behold, just last Saturday a different McCain spokeswoman said on television that while Obama would perform well in northern Virginia, “the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message”. This did not seem to be a planned one-liner. The spokeswoman made the fatal error of saying what she actually thinks. Republican Virginia equals real Virginia. Democratic Virginia is alien and impure.

This point was proved most dramatically by a woman named Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress from Minnesota. In an interview last Friday on Hardball, a leading US cable talk show, host Chris Matthews asked Bachmann whether Obama worried her. “Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” she said. He asked her what she thought distinguished liberal from hard left from anti-American. If she maintains such distinctions in her mind, she refused to acknowledge them. Then, finally, Matthews — who deftly fed her the rope to hang herself — asked her how many members of the US Congress held, in her view, anti-American views.

It’s been almost a two-year campaign. There have been moments we’ve thought of as memorable at the time, only to see the high tide of new events erase their mark from the sand. Bachmann’s answer, however, will live imperishably: “What I would say — what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that.”

Before we go any further — who is this Bachmann? She’s a first-term backbencher from exurban Minneapolis who says the Lord told her to run for Congress. She declared herself “a fool for Christ” in 2006 when she announced her candidacy. By all accounts she’s down with the whole rightwing Christian package: immigrants bring disease and pestilence, homosexuals want to indoctrinate straight children, and so on. Republican leadership undoubtedly pushed her out on to television because she is, as some say, a looker — at least by the standards of Congress.

It will happen many more times over these next two weeks. McCain, who now openly uses the word “socialist” to describe Obama’s proposals (the week after his friend George W Bush took federal control of nine major banks!), and especially Palin have shown every sign of encouraging it. Their goal is to scare the American people about Obama, but moderate, independent voters might well decide that Obama looks a lot less scary than they do.

The writer is editor of Guardian America.

— The Guardian, London