2 1 0 0 What is it that keeps a highly educated professional with diverse experience in the lowly paid civil services of Pakistan? Is it the palatial GOR residences, the colonial era cushy jobs of DC and SP, the motorcade of official vehicles, the seemingly unhindered exercise of state authority or a guaranteed career track till one turns sixty? The answers to these apparently simple questions are not easy when one considers that only a small percentage of civil servants make it to palatial GOR houses; nostalgic postings as DC or SP at best make a small fraction of a few years in a career of typically three decades while longer periods are regularly to be served as OSDs without a single vehicle or driver. And if you add to all that the certainty of being posted one fine morning from Lahore or Islamabad to Quetta or Gilgit (with all the obvious implications for a stranded family person), one would tend to revisit the knee-jerk logic explaining why people stay in the civil services. That civil service even today provides one of the most enchanting and exciting avenues of self-actualisation needs little justification. Hardly any professional career provides as much exposure in terms of people or public issues as is guaranteed in the civil services. Working with real life people along with real life problems from day one gives the majority of civil service streams a kind of deeper outlook to life which cannot be imagined in other career paths. Horizontal as well as vertical mobility, which is a regular part of the majority of the civil services, implies a unique opportunity of richness of professional experience. Last but not the least, the unmatched opportunities of working to alleviate individual or collective sufferings of common people endows a missionary taste to the career of field civil servants which is seldom to be found in other professional pursuits. For nearly a century, these reasons entailed enough pull to allure budding brilliance in the fold of the civil services. Young people would forsake other career options (entailing a lot more remuneration and stability) and readily opt for somewhat volatile careers in civil services till a decade or so back. But an obvious transformation can now be seen in terms of fewer willing youth opting for civil services as the destination of first choice. The reasons for that are many and complex; changed societal milieu, higher costs of living including healthcare and education, preferred lifestyles associated with bigger cities, greener pastures abroad, politicisation of bureaucracy and all that it implies. In fact a long list can be cited of such push factors. And to top it all, a nearly funny remuneration structure – totally divorced from today’s realities – is the prime culprit in rendering civil services an undesirable career option for a capable young person. There is little doubt that we need bright people to continue joining the civil services even today for a variety of reasons. The complexity of governance challenges facing today’s Pakistan badly needs people of above average capability to run the state edifice. The socio-economic challenges facing our society and economy need brilliant drivers at all ladders of government. Grassroots distortions of our systems badly yearn for sympathetic and passionate field administrators to run everyday affairs. The corridors of policy-making at both the provincial and the federal levels require professional and administrative expertise that can best be brought by a career civil servant. While technocrat cadres can fill some of these gaps, a regular stream of bright, energetic and professionally groomed mandarin cadre is essential for the smooth running of government machinery. The challenge for authorities is therefore two-fold for ensuring quality civil service in Pakistan. On the one hand, civil services need to be made an attractive entry option for our capable and brilliant youth on completing education. On the other hand, terms and conditions within service systems ought to be tailored such as to appear attractive enough for ensuring retention of quality human resource. The former has a lot to do with changing perceptions while the latter would require massive tweaking within structures and systems of terms and conditions. The rationalisation of salary and the remuneration mechanism needs to top the agenda list. Obviously no one is arguing for a starry rise in salaries across the board as that would both be unpractical as well as financially unviable. But a balanced path can still be found between impracticability and a viable restructuring of the pay structure. An attractive remuneration structure can be linked with crucial jobs entailing valuable outputs founded on pragmatic monitoring. Pay structures can be related to empirically verifiable performance yardsticks and quantifiable achievement of goals. Obviously, these are easier said than done but certainly challenges in operationalising a performance and output-based remuneration structure should not be crucified on a faulty alter of equity for all which is just another expression for promoting mediocrity. Ensuring a salary structure which is concomitant with the reasonable livelihood needs of today can be just the right kind of incentive for attracting and retaining capable youth in the fold of the country’s civil services. Fear of displacement in the advanced stage of a civil servant’s career o can be alleviated be emulating India’s example where civil servants are allocated to states for longer periods of time until their calling in the central government. Another mechanism for minimising financial predicaments and promoting professional excellence could be a more generous policy towards secondment and permission for civil servants to serve outside government in reputable national and international organisations for limited periods. This can bring the much needed financial cushion alongside brushing the professionalism of a civil servant by allowing him/her an opportunity to work in diverse circumstances. Further improvement in the amortisation policies can resolve the dilemma of chauffer driven vehicles and official residences including GORs. Timely adoption of such remedial measures can ensure professional and functional excellence within the bureaucracy even in today’s challenging circumstances. The writer is a governance and public policy expert. Email: rizwanmehboob@yahoo
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:59:06 +0000
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