Daily Times

When Indian politician and founder-patron of the Samajwadi Party Mulayam Singh Yadav took over as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, he sent for the provincial agriculture secretary and candidly told him: “I am not as educated as you are, but I have some [leadership] qualities, which you do not possess.” He then gave another policy direction: “Never mislead me and we will get on very well.” This would be the best advice for the naïve PTI leadership, both in the centre and Punjab.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s socialist approach damaged the nascent industrial sector in the 1970s when bureaucrats ran the nationalised industrial units. That experience ended in a fiasco, and the nation is still paying the price of bad political decisions.

Analysts believe that the power division between Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar and Chief Secretary Major (Retd) Azam Suleman would broaden the service-delivery gaps, which the PTI needs to fill in the midst of political contrasts among temporal partners. The skirmish between the provincial top guns is being viewed as internecine for the political allies ruling the province.

One of the significant alliance players has shown modest dismay over the substitution of the previous chief secretary, Yusuf Naseem Khokhar. He had served as the additional secretary to the then chief minister, Chaudhary Pervez Elahi. Khokhar, as it was implicit in the chief minister office, used to take orders from people other than the chief executive of the province, Buzdar. It was also said that Khokhar had failed to deliver on many fronts, such as overcoming the price hike, removal of encroachments, and political postings.

After Azam Suleman became the chief secretary, many political representatives have started to visit the Civil Secretariat for transfers and postings, development projects, and releasing of funds

After the new chief secretary Suleman took over the reins of the province as a regulatory head, he made a massive reshuffle in bureaucratic portfolios. A large number of administrative secretaries that were viewed close to Buzdar were relocated. Additional Chief Secretary Sardar Ijaz Jaffar, a relative of Chief Minister Buzdar, and many other officers were also transferred. It is said that Suleman wanted his direct control over the home department. “Some of the officials earlier posted on key positions, having autonomous working styles, were transferred by the new chief secretary and supplanted by those less independent,” complained a cabinet member close to Chief Minister Buzdar.

After Azam Suleman became the chief secretary, many political representatives have started to visit the Civil Secretariat in Lahore for transfers and postings, development projects, and releasing of funds. “As is common among the stakeholders, the power hub is the Civil Secretariat now, not the CMO, so members of parliament visit Suleman,” the hapless minister muttered.

Even after Suleman’s posting as the top man, no new mechanism of merit-based postings and transfers could be formally devised and notified. Suleman, a seasoned bureaucrat with ‘back-support’ and experience of working on key positions in Punjab, is expected to manage the administrative lacunas caused by others’ continued gullibility. Although Chief Secretary Suleman has made surprise visits to different divisions he has been unable so far to bring realistic reforms in service delivery. He is also unable to prove himself as the hard taskmaster and is, rather, perceived as a jack-in-office. Under such circumstances, the Citizen’s Feedback Model Programme of Shahbaz Sharif and PM Imran Khan’s Pakistan Citizen Portal are also losing their essence.

Meanwhile, many deputy commissioners and commissioners have been transferred without following the requisite criterion. Instead of focusing on public issues and the core agenda of political parties, there has been much back-scratching of one another. As a result, the much-trumpeted ‘change’ is not seen anywhere.

The ongoing power struggle is not a constitutional crisis but rather a paradoxical approach towards good governance. The chief minister, as it seems, has been let down by an incompetent team of advisors and media managers. The continued poor media management of the Punjab government has resulted in its constant defame and rise of the larger-than-size role of bureaucrats in the province. But the PTI hasn’t realised that bureaucracy even damaged the work of a political maverick like Bhutto.

Moreover, the all-powerful chief secretary wants to overhaul the BOR and land computerisation system. The Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA), the brainchild of the former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, needed overhauling. As he served as a district collector, he knew problems of landholders and farmers, and drawbacks in the new system. The reports that the bribe rate in the PLRA has greatly increased may have urged the chief secretary to bring some reforms in the revenue system. Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Babar Hayat Tarar had taken initiatives to redress lacunas in the revenue and tax collection mechanism.

Tarar, one of the top two grade-22 PAS officers, was repatriated to the Establishment Division after he allegedly refused to surrender state lands for a housing scheme. Tarar, somehow, managed his transfer. It may be added here that the former SMBR Nadeem Ashraf was shown the door during the tenure of Sharif for refusing to dole out state land to a private company for installing a power project at Qadirpur.

This ongoing conflict could inversely affect the PM’s initiative to build houses for low-income people. The lack of coordination between the top two administrative and revenue bosses may slow down the process of searching state lands in Punjab for the PM’s housing project. The tug of war among the administrative and political power pillars may give rise to legislative anarchy, which could cause severe political damages to the incumbent PTI government.

The government machinery led by Chief Secretary Suleman could not timely cope with the artificial wheat and sugar crises, escalating price hike, inflation, lawlessness, political manoeuvring, hoarding and other issues. It is imperative to keep the political and administrative leadership on the same page. After one-and-a-half-year in power, the PTI could not finalise civil service reforms to counter red-tapism and to speed up service delivery.

A weak political setup in the centre has made the political leadership vulnerable to the administrative system. In Sindh, the chief minister and the Inspector General of Police Kalim Imam are at loggerheads just as the former chief minister Qaim Ali Shah and his chief minister Sajjad Saleem Hotiana were.

The current deadlock, as it seems, is likely to continue till Prime Minister Imran Khan makes strict decisions both in centre and Punjab regarding his political panel and civil servants’ domains. Instead of making political postings he should ensure selection of hard task masters and good coordinators on key positions to impede his plunge as the intense need is to ‘democratisation of bureaucracy’ and not ‘bureaucratisation of democracy’.

The writer is a Lahore based freelance columnist