Daily Times

In his most recent media comments on the working of Pakistan’s embassies/ consulates abroad, Prime Minister Imran Khan was gracious enough to console the Foreign Office, so as to mitigate the loss of morale caused by his earlier public chastisement of the organisation. Nevertheless, he again emphasised the need to improve consular and welfare services the Foreign Office provides to Pakistan’s nine-million strong diaspora worldwide as well as the need for robust economic diplomacy.

Like most governmental institutions in Pakistan, the Foreign Office is direly in need of wide-ranging reforms. It is heartening to note that in a recent address to senior diplomats, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced the setting up of a reform taskforce. While I am not privy to the purview of this committee, nor have an idea as to how serious this initiative is, some thoughts based on my years of interaction with the institution are shared for whatever they are worth.

The core organisational structure of the Foreign Office is over 70 years old. Political or administrative directorates with assistant/deputy directors at the bottom and directors at the top. Two or more directorates are lumped together as divisions headed by director-generals. One or more divisions are headed by additional secretaries, all reporting to a foreign secretary who is generally preoccupied with key policy issues and keeping the political bosses happy. While foreign offices in countries have evolved much over the years, employing matrix structures, flexible hierarchies and many other innovations, Pakistan’s has remained static.

Consequently, it has a structure and culture that focuses on routine work or ‘firefighting’, with no room for strategic thinking, or attention to anything beyond political diplomacy.

Most diplomats work to get a good foreign posting because of the huge difference in quality of life and pay. But what is the criteria and system for deciding foreign postings? Basically, nothing other than being in the good books of the top bosses

While lip service is paid to economic diplomacy, public outreach, strategic planning and welfare of Overseas Pakistanis – in reality, none of these features in the Foreign Office’s actual priorities, where only multilateral or territorial divisions get dedicated officers. All other subjects are just given as extra charge to officers with entirely different core responsibilities. For instance, the same additional secretary in the Foreign Office is heading the posts of Additional Secretary (Administration), Additional Secretary (Consular and Overseas Pakistanis), Additional Secretary (Special Projects), Additional Secretary (Legal), Additional Secretary (Audit), and if all that wasn’t enough, also the portfolio of Director-General Foreign Service Academy. And since the incumbent is set to retire in a few months, he must be equally preoccupied with post-retirement concerns. While the much-touted Strategic Communications Division is with Foreign Minister’s Staff Officer and the entirety of Economic Diplomacy is being handled as an extra charge by the Additional Secretary (UN Division). No wonder output on all counts stands at a bare minimum.

Dr Ishrat Hussain was tasked with reforming the organisation but could not bring even a modicum of change. The Foreign Office’s organisational structure needs to be revised according to the needs of the present era. If the emphasis has to be on geoeconomics rather than geopolitics, as the PM said, then the Foreign Office’s structure and its functioning should reflect it.

It is common knowledge that most diplomats, if not all, in the Foreign Office are basically working to get a good foreign posting because of the huge difference in quality of life and pay. At the ambassadorial level, the package includes many additional perks. But what is the criteria and system for deciding foreign postings? Basically, nothing other than being in the good books of the top bosses, as the policy on paper, which was laid out in 2015, is not actually followed.

In previous years, a pattern was followed for ambassadorial postings, which at least helped groom mature ambassadors for key stations. The first ambassadorship was always a small- or medium-sized mission, followed by bigger embassies if performance was good. But in recent years, there has been a trend of first-time ambassadors getting some of the most important stations through connections or internal manoeuvring. And the results have been disastrous: Zaheer Aslam Janjua was prematurely recalled from Moscow; Sahebzada Ahmed Khan had to leave the UK within a few months owing to his inappropriate behaviour at London’s O2 Arena (notably appointed by the PML-N government in its last few weeks for political reasons); Raja Ali Ejaz’s posting to Saudi Arabia led to a big scandal; and another first-time ambassador to a key European capital has been termed as a ‘comic’ by his interlocutors.

Yet the foreign minister asked the prime minister, right after his divisive yet popular address to the ambassadors last week, to give him a free hand to appoint any officer as an ambassador to any capital, regardless of seniority or experience. Incidentally, there was also a desire to do away with the only rule that has been generally followed while deciding postings abroad. That is two postings abroad and one at home. If these two changes materialise, the further impetus to the culture of nepotism and sycophancy will drag the Foreign Office down to the level of clerks.

What is required rather is a culture of rules-based postings and transfers and implementation of a clearly laid out policy, rather than the absence of both. Lastly, the weakest link in the Foreign Office is its administrative culture. Preoccupied with the demands of multilateral and bilateral diplomacy, a foreign secretary cannot micromanage a huge organisation with multifaceted responsibilities. Hence, the need for a more diffused power structure.

A balance of powers between the political leadership and the administrative leadership in terms of appointments and postings decisions is also very important. A foreign secretary eternally striving to humour the foreign minister to get a consolation posting abroad cannot guarantee that. Appointment of well-rounded foreign secretaries for a full term, with no possibility of a golden handshake ambassadorship, as a rule, could help restore the organisational balance required for optimal functioning and growth of this national institutional.

The writer is Associate Editor (Diplomatic Affairs), Daily Times. He tweets @mhassankhan06