Daily Times

The speed and efficiency with which the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) investigated the Rawalpindi Ring Road scam and moved to arrest former Rawalpindi Commissioner Captain (r) Muhammad Mahmood and land acquisition collector Abbas Tabish only goes to show how swiftly things can proceed, once the state puts its foot down. Due credit must be given to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for calling for and monitoring this investigation right from the very top. But now that this cat is out of the bag, it is clear that there are very regressive forces controlling key aspects of this country’s bureaucracy and these black sheep need not only to be named and shamed, but also punished in a manner that fits their abuse of power and privilege.

It turns out that former Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Zulfi Bukhari and Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar are in the clear, but elements in the bureaucracy changed the design of the project, added new interchanges, dragged the last two kilometers inside the jurisdiction of the Islamabad Capital Territory, and caused losses worth billions of rupees to the national exchequer only for the benefit of a few influential people, real estate dealers, etc, and to lace their own accounts with kickbacks. And they were able to do it so easily, without even seeking permission from the government, because of all the powers that the civil service enjoys.

The Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) government has been talking about bureaucratic reforms for a long time. PM Imran Khan even tasked his Special Advisor for Institutional Reforms and Austerity Dr Ishrat Hussain with it very early on in this administration, and he floated a number of initiatives, but nothing has come of it so far. Perhaps this case provides a good opportunity to take this particular bull by the horns once and for all. As things stand, most senior bureaucrats are more a part of the problem than the solution. They thrive on the status quo, and make all sorts of excuses to avoid cutting red tape in official business; and that too for the only reason that it would reduce their own nuisance value. Now, their attitude has even got the finance minister and NAB at each other’s throats because they complained to the former that the latter’s overbearing presence was keeping them from taking initiatives and spending public money as they see appropriate. Surely, the time to sort the bureaucracy out and make it more efficient has come. *