Daily Times

Newly elected Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has directed the creation of seven new ministries. Narcotics, privatisation, statistics, water resource and postal service are to name but a few that have been created under the provisions of Rule 3 of the Rules of Business 1973 Act. These ministries have been largely assigned to new cabinet members who were sworn in on Friday. Pervaiz Malik has been given charge of the freshly created Commerce and Textile ministry, whereas Haji Akram Ansari has been made state minister for it. Lt Gen (r) Salahuddin Tirmizi has been handed over the newly created Narcotics Control ministry; Maulana Ameer Zaman has been given freshly created Postal Services ministry and; Syed Javed Ali Shah has been given the charge of newly constituted Water Resources ministry.

One way of looking at this development is that PM Abbasi is trying to delegate and streamline the business of federal government. With the current status of load shedding and noting Abbasi’s promise of eradicating power shortages by November, carving out the Ministry of Energy into a power and petroleum division sounds like a promising idea. Similarly, given the inconsistency with which the census and other surveys are conducted, and the long-standing issues with national statistics, the newly constituted Ministry of Statistics, at least on paper, appears to be good news.

Sadly, public offices in Pakistan are viewed as avenues for patronage whereby politicians can dole out favours to their constituents. Rarely such restructuring is done under a comprehensive policy framework. Ad hoc-ism has become a standard practice when it comes to the business of the government. Globally, there has been a debate on keeping the size of the government small and enhancing the regulatory functions of the state. Big cabinets are politically useful but their effectiveness in promoting good governance is unclear. Increasing the size of the federal government is also against the spirit of the eighteenth amendment that was enacted with the support of the ruling party in 2010. The idea was to delegate more and more powers to the provinces. In the past few years, there has been a slow trend to recentralise. The creation of new ministries therefore should follow principles of federalist governance.

Leaving this debate aside, unclear functions are more worrying. What exactly will be the role and tasks of ministries for privatisation and postal services considering that there are other large public sector entities that handle these operationally? Similarly, many of the newly created ministries have been carved without the necessary process of determining their terms of reference and specific goals. In any case, what can they achieve in one year when this cabinet will be dissolved in preparation for the general elections of 2018? The latest move is simply a means to reward Nawaz Sharif loyalists while ensuring that PMLN remains united in the current phase of political uncertainty.  *

Published in Daily Times, August 6^th 2017.