Daily Times

The Mian government’s loud, deafening diatribe of elusive economic wonders and ventures hardly seem to benefit the masses or impress impartial observers and analysts. Still honouring it as our elected government especially from Punjab and now being further sanctified by the decision of the Judicial Commission, it would be better to submit an effective cost reduction recipe rather than just hectoring at it like its diehard detractors. This submission concerns the most crucial step of structuring the cabinet that as the Constitution supersedes all family cliques and kitchen coteries. Crafting a compact and competent cabinet is indeed the prime indicator of the premier’s potential, efficiency, acumen and commitment to the coffers of the taxpayers and their foreign benefactors persistently pestered for aid, loans and investments. The proper size and relevance of various portfolios in a cabinet actually predetermine its entire performance. The critical correlation between the optimum size and performance, in a nation beguiled by bombs, can be best illustrated by the critical mass of the fissile material packed in the bombs that predetermines their blasts and impacts. The competence of some ministers, like that of Abid Sher or Ishaq Dar, in fact, may be compromised by the consideration of the kinship or the constraints to appease the representatives from some regions or party factions yet the imperatives of size, in a nation stuck in economic straits, must never be sacrificed.
But some of the ministries in our federal constellation have unfortunately become almost utterly nonfunctional, losing rationale, relevance and the need for their continuation. Thus, the cabinet has to be properly pruned and modified. The reorganization, as necessitated by incontrovertible realities and circumstances, must certainly begin by winding up the defence ministry, the mere mention of which would sound rather sacrilegious to most readers. This ministry irrefutably is the most indispensable for our nation nurtured with the passion to emulate the immense and unrivalled valour and victories of our ancestors. Such passions, reverence, devotion and adulations for our armed forces have inherently helped them hone their skills, discipline, authority and prerogative to the ultimate pinnacle where any question of their civilian oversight becomes entirely irrelevant. In democratic countries like the US, generals are summoned before the Senate to explain their policies. The defence budget is openly debated and modified by parliaments. During the historic days of World War II, the senior army command used to meet the special assistants of Churchill to have its strategies scrutinised by them. But the mammoth, collective national confidence in our armed forces has elevated them beyond all such rigour and routines.
General Raheel Sharif has particularly garnered unprecedented gravitas to his persona spearheaded by his bold thrust against the terrorists in contrast to the vacillating dialogue discourse of the government. The generals since then seem to be guiding rather than being guided by the government. Most foreign trips and interactions are being conducted by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) rather than by the defence minister. Even the defence secretary happens to be a retired general. Civilian paraphernalia consequently having become superfluously symbolic has to be obviously scrapped. The COAS, of course, if needed, can be requested to grace and brief (read instruct) the cabinet the way he briefed the political parties and ‘dharnay’ (sit-in) Khan or the way General Ayub acted as a defence minister in 1954 in Bogra’s cabinet.
The generals’ contribution to internal security, especially in crushing terrorism, similarly has also become quite crucial and overwhelmingly predominant. They are evidently far more likely to succeed because of their real, intimate grasp about the genesis and traction of the terrorists whom their predecessor commanders created and touted as “the grand national strategic asset” to attain ‘strategic depth’. Their success following the National Action Plan (NAP) has been already seen in several sectors including the perpetrators’ urban hideouts, havens and hotspots. They have even amped up the Rangers, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) to combat corruption and the kindred crimes of some select politicians, reviving the great cleansing operation experienced during previous martial laws. General Naveed Mukhtar’s disenchantment with the Sindh government, in his speech carried live on television channels, echoed almost as an address made by the erstwhile martial law administrators and almost explicitly portrayed that the super smart model of praetorian efficiency and perfection is to be re-injected into incompetent civilian sectors. The federal interior ministry, preceding this ominous martial resolve, had so miserably foundered. Chaudhry Nisar is indeed on record as having lamented and protested the death of a terror chieftain in a drone attack. The interior ministry, thus obviously having lost its justification, must be entrusted to the generals.
The foreign ministry, as rammed repeatedly by several leading legislators, is merely a mega mess and is actually non-existent. Run reportedly by two aging advisors often oblivious of their relative role and squabbling over their space and sphere, it is equally incapacitated by the fact that our foreign policy has always been formulated and orchestrated by khaki command, concern and perceptions. General Raheel Sharif’s flurry of foreign forays, the media hype, honours and the accolades, have evidently further sealed the fate of this ministry or any other likely incumbent. His trip to the US was more extensive than that of the premier while those to China, Afghanistan, Turkey, Italy and Russia were even more prominently played. These, interestingly, were not confined to the communication with his uniformed counterparts but even involved ministers and political pantheon. The foreign ministry thus must move where it actually belongs. Given to the GHQ, it would also bring billions to the nation by returning the foreign office to its original Sherzad Hotel hangout.
Culling the media ministry constitutes an even more compelling case. The government, despite being goaded by the SC, has failed to formulate even a code of conduct for its functioning. Television channels invariably pillory the politicians, pressing for their relentless accountability by the generals and deride the democratic dispensation with their flagship sarcastic jibes. The trumpeters of instant takeover like Musharraf and Sheikh Rashid are kept inextricably riveted to the screens. The way these channels almost entirely excised the elected leadership during recent Eid transmissions preferring to exalt the armed forces proves that the media, as an adjunct of the defence ministry, can really work wonders for the national cause and glory.
This new cabinet configuration evidently would not merely cut costs but also ensure a concrete implementation of our newer paradigm of civil-military partnership, pinning the government to the ‘same page’ of given assignments.

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist. He can be contacted at habibpbu@yahoo.com