Daily Times

There is a strong progressive relationship between public policy and governance. Public policy is the strategy of the bigger plan and governance is the action of that plan in the shape of implementation.

Public policy is the method by which governments transform their political vision into strategic programs and seek ways of implementation for the actions to deliver the outcomes of anticipated modifications in the constantly changing environment.

These are created in order to address the issues that arise before the decision makers and law makers convert them into laws and regulations meeting the societal needs, wants and ensure promises to focus to transform the society, communities, nation and their resources and keep general order in society. It is an ongoing process having no start and end.

The Agenda is set with the issues to address them for policy decision makers having segments of every sphere of life where a plan need to be set for long term vision and its decisions that are intended to solve problems and improve the quality of life for its citizens.

In the formation for policy the agenda is discussed in detail and the solutions are proposed to be achieved in the given time. The leaders of the political parties, different groups, civil servants, business leaders, representatives of the civil society and all necessary stake holders to be made the part of the process for forming the policy. This policy has to be made legitimate by the action of the government and must be moved through the legislative process. A policy is adopted when parliament passes legislation, the regulations become final, or the Supreme Court decides a verdict in a case. The Supreme Court has no mechanism to enforce its decisions; other branches of government facilitate and must implement its fortitudes. Successful implementation depends on the complication of the policy, coordination between those putting the policy into effect, and compliance.

The policy can only be made successful by acting on the action plan through implementation. Poor implementation can be a big failure even for a very well prepared and written policy.

The developed countries and countries who have a rapid growth rate have developed their public policies for long term, midterm and short term and they have set the given targets to the achieve the set goals in order have a vertical and horizontal growth. In the same lines and spirit Pakistan needs to have a two hundred , one hundred, fifty years, twenty five years, every ten year, five year and every year plan and further every year plan needs to be sub divided into half year, quarter months plan, every month and every week plan. If you ask the government officials they will say we have the plan the same way and yes I agree it is available in the official and text books in the same way I mentioned but there is no agenda and implementation of the policies in any sector.

We need to take war-footing steps in the country with the added value of technology and digitalization in all sectors in order to keep Pakistan intact and compete with the regional and global powers. A detailed action plan can be prepared for all the sectors but it needs efficacy from top to bottom in strategizing and implementing it. I am sharing the highlights which can be given a detailed thought and brain storming from the experts of every particular sector keeping in mind the view point of the stake holders as well.

I was going home in my car few days back and was listening to the FM radio that an application is launched by the Foreign office so that the Foreign Minister can directly contact all the officials working around the world in different missions and High Commission of Pakistan. It’s a good initiative but in my view this should have happened a decade back. What is more important now is that the policy should be made to own the premises of the mission and high commissions rather than paying huge rents. The officials around the world should be given a target to develop and arrange on improving the bilateral relation with all the countries which shall give rise to the diplomatic, business and people to people contact. I know it’s happening but the results show that India is far more better in playing its role than us. Pakistan need more focus on the regional connectivity and better relation with the neighbors.

Our army has already fenced most of the western border and the work is on going. It should be highly commendable as we are sleeping with peace of mind as most of us don’t know the ground reality of North and South Waziristan. One more thing which is commendable is the installing of thousands of cameras in Lahore, most of them are unfortunately not working right now due to service issues, and making the safe city authority in order to keep an eye on the criminals and law offenders. We should follow the same path and plan to extend the safe city authority for Pakistan’s top 30 cities in next five to ten years.

The working relation and exchange of data and information between the State Bank and all other banks, NADRA, Federal Board of Revenue, SECP, Excise and Taxation department, Law enforcing Agencies including FIA and Police, all the utilities service providers and few other departments which can be added as and when required. This sharing of data will help them identify people who are nontax payers and living beyond means. This will include people who are travelling especially with families and spending too much money, traders and retailers, people buying expense vehicles especially having more than one, people buying land or more than one residential or commercial properties, people who are making transactions with unknown source of income, people whose are paying huge amounts to private hospitals and paying huge fees for their children to private schools and universities, people running more than one company and people paying huge utility bills but not interested in paying tax. This is just a cycle which can make people realize that they have to come within the tax net in order to keep the things working for Pakistan. This will help all the government agencies to keep a check and balance on the cartels controlling their respective industry out of the reach of accountability.

We are an agricultural country and this is what I have been listening since my childhood and this is the reason all I am saying is that Agriculture needs an special attention in formulation of its policy as technology has made the Agri-life easy for the farmers but we need to revisit the policy to achieve fruitful results in facilitating the technology in agri-business and taking the most advantage out of it by increasing the per acre yield. This can be done by focusing on changing trends in agriculture like the drip farming, urban agriculture, smart design, and vertical farms, The drones & the bees, artificial intelligence, and automation, blockchain technology, soil and water sensors, weather tracking, satellite imaging and imagine on how robotics could positively impact the production of food. We have resources and all we need is training for the farmers which can be done with the will and intention to do so.

We should take the maximum benefit of CPEC as everyone says it’s a game changer for Pakistan. I believe that we have to make it a game changer it will not happen on its own. All the planning is done but I feel there are many things that can be added in its planning and it will make a difference for Pakistan in the short term and specially in the long term for all generation to come. Baluchistan should be the main focus of the agenda as there can be a lot done there. It has an enormous potential that is untapped and this has to be milked very wisely that can change the life of Pakistan. New smart cities should be planned with all necessary requirements for the future on route of CPEC after every fifty kilometers on one side of the road and on the other side it should be planned same way but twenty five kms distance should be kept between one side and other of the newly planned smart cities leaving more than 5 kms from the CPEC motorway so there can be heavy plantation done in between. A rail track along with this route must be developed for electric rail touching all the newly planned smart cities. 10 new airports to be made in top 10 cities in Pakistan other than where airports are already in working condition those need to be upgraded.

A detailed new policy on building soft and hard infrastructure including Health, education, environment, information technology, sports, youth, culture, water management, handling and exploring of natural resources specially continuity of the TAPI and Iran Pakistan gas pipeline, which will help Pakistan in reducing the cost of utilities services in gas and electricity which will have a inherent effect of low cost of production in all sectors and products will be economical, just to name a few is available here. We should also prepare a policy for moving on to electric vehicles in next ten years. A policy with strong regulation is needed for recycling plants must be a part of every production and manufacturing units across the country. A detailed policy is needed with backed up by strong regulation for water wastage and smart architecture for commercial and housing where water should be saved and recycle for usage. Accountability should start from lower grade officer to the top most. A NAB questionnaire with more than 45 question should be given to every politician, every person doing business with government, it will minimize the chances of bribery, and public servants who are withdrawing salary from public exchequer to bring everything on record of all the family in order to know about their assets when they started their career. These all sectors need to be discussed individually in separate articles. There is not enough space to write about each and every sector here it’s just a highlight of the things needed to be done.

At the federal level, public policies are enacted to regulate industry and business, to protect citizens at home and abroad, to aid state and city governments and people such as the poor through funding programs, and to encourage social goals.

A policy established and carried out by the government goes through several stages from inception to conclusion. These are agenda building, formulation, adoption, implementation, evaluation, and termination.

In reality, a country is a cherished reflection of its public policy which is the main manager of its governance style and planning. Evidently, analyzing the characteristic of governance through the elements of public policy arrangements is fundamental to defining every day and workable strategies for upcoming good governance.

Governance, which is repeatedly left in the hands of the political and administrative leadership through the tools of public policy, discusses largely to the use of power through a national, political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal and institutional, for the advantage of the massive majority of the citizens.

Any failure to exercise such power in the proper ways leads to exclusion, poverty, frustration, aggression, and insecurity. The apparently incapability of the Leaders of government and government bureaucracy to deliver much needed services to the huge majority of the citizens specially a common man and the subsequent failure of the standard of living of the people may be understood as a conclusive evidence of failed public policy and reforms.

For this, all we need is a Leader who is ethically and morally honest, competent, must have diversified experience, educated, must belong to a respectable family, because a clean background enjoys good reputation. He must be a tax payer with all assets and liabilities declared since long, with clear will and good intention to change the fate of nation and people. He must be a practical person, a person who is a nationalist and have no western interest, a person who is supported by the self or family means of income, a person whose business should not make a conflict of interest once leading. In short we need a leader who set the tradition by exemplary leadership.