Uzair Bin Farid

Lack of objective oversight and procedural measures to check compliance results in decline in performance of government departments, according to Ijaz Ali, a research fellow at the Centre for Business and Economic Relations (CBER) Karachi.

While talking to WealthPK, Ijaz Ali said the government departments suffer from a lack of compliance oversight which is essential for the proper functioning of bureaucratic entities.

“All developed countries in the world take a lot of care in ensuring that their government-run entities comply with procedural norms and compliance standards. If there is a slack in the performance of any department or individual, necessary action on the institutional level is undertaken,” he said.

The researcher underlined that the government-run entities have a vital role to play in development of a country.

“That governmental setup, however, was not based on ad-hoc wishes of the ruling elite. It was, rather, based on a very strict procedure that rewarded only on the basis of merit,” he pointed out.

He said that Pakistan consistently lacks in ease of doing business rankings because the slow pace at which things move in government departments makes the investors lose patience and capital flight takes over.

Ijaz noted that one cause of the slow pace at which the government-run departments run is over-staffing.

“People prefer to join a government department because of their personal inclination to have job security, a job which is not burdensome, and a culture which acknowledges the status of having a permanent job. Serving the government is not a bad choice per se, but the wholesale hijacking of government machinery by people who go in just for personal reward introduces delays in the machinery's working,” he elaborated.

Ijaz said that increasing the number of employees without taking into account the productivity of existing employees is only a political choice and not a sound economic one.

“If more and more people are inducted in the government departments, the ‘law of diminishing marginal productivity’ sets in,” he said.

“That is where things start to go downhill. Departments cannot function at a pace that is needed to match the institutional productivity of modern economies,” he explained.

Ijaz said that instead of thinking about the government as a source of personal security and wealth, people need to change their attitudes.

“The government is a resource that can be properly utilized to match the productivity of hyper-fast economies,” he said.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk