The latest shakeup in Punjab means the province now has its seventh police chief and fifth chief secretary in just a little over three years, which is astonishing because it’s left the public puzzled and the senior bureaucracy paralysed. It is because of this game of musical chairs that senior officers in the province have, for once, begun avoiding high-level transfers and postings because the short life expectancy at these top positions tends to plague their careers; giving them, effectively, the kiss of death. The six IGs of the police and four chief secretaries prior to the present duo will now carry the tag of not-good-enough wherever their careers take them, which isn’t exactly how the cream of the civil service likes to bow out, to say the least. People would also be wondering no doubt if the fault lay with dozen officers that have come and gone or with the decision-making process itself. It also says a lot about the way in which the province is being run. If the longest the chief minister can apparently tolerate the most senior officers in police and district management groups is just a few months, and he’s not been able to find one man capable of staying on the job to his satisfaction so far, then perhaps it is the provincial government’s aims and ideals that are not properly defined. That this state of affairs has persisted for three whole years means that the government hasn’t yet got down to governing in the way that it intended to in the first place, which is clearly not good news from the people’s point of view. That, needless to say, is not very reassuring. It’s also quite odd that whenever Chief Minister Usman Buzdar goes to Prime Minister Imran Khan and the federal cabinet for yet another change in the provincial setup, he comes back with a ready approval without any questions asked. The usual line from PTI spokespersons, that such changes will continue till the right people are found for the right jobs, makes no sense at all, especially this late in the electoral cycle because the people these officers are replaced with have also had the same training and similar work experiences. So, if merely changing the person in the job was enough to move things along, then surely the Punjab government would have found the kind of candidates it’s been looking for by now, and then it would also have done some of the things it promised to do when it came to power. Sadly, all Chief Minister Buzdar has done so far is make everybody go round in circles. All this is a far cry from the promises of reforms, particularly in the civil service, that PTI harped about on the campaign trail. It can only be hoped, for the sake of the government, civil service, and the people, that the Punjab CM will not feel the need to swing his axe another time during this tenure. *