Daily Times

KARACHI: A consultative workshop on ‘Public Sector Modernisation and Civil Service Reforms’ was jointly organised here on Monday by the Planning Commission and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The workshop was attended by bureaucrats, federal and provincial secretaries, academicians, politicians and journalists. Speaking on the occasion, former University of Sindh vice chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui said that coordination between federal and provincial governments should be better. “The laws governing civil services needed a drastic amendment,” he said. University of Sindh Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat stressed the need for e-governance system in the country, which according to him is the best system for bringing drastic changes in the country. He demanded that the civil servants must be given equal perks and privileges to those of corporate sector employees. “Only 26 government department employees enjoy benefits” he said, adding that civil servants must be given proper security. MPA Mehtab Akbar Rashdi was of the view that there should be no compromise on the recruitment process, and added that accountability system must be put in place.

“There are hectic transfers and postings of civil servants due to political interference, which hinders civil servant to perform their duties properly,” Rashdi observed. Many reforms for civil services have been introduced, including those of 1973, 2000 and Police Order 2002, but the only matter is their implementation, she added. Auqaf Secretary Riaz Soomro said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) must be stripped off power as “it had failed to perform its functions well”. In his concluding remarks, Services General Administration and Coordination Secretary Rizwan Memon said that salaries, allowances, education and health were related issues, which must be addressed. Bureaucracy and political system should work together for development of the country, he added. Speakers also called for introducing a system of reward and punishment for civil servants. They also called for enhanced training with special focus on ethics and moral values.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th , 2017.