Administrative decay: adverse impact on development
By Aftab Ahmad Khan

The system of public administration tends to become inadequate everywhere in the world in the face of changing and growing demands on it. The demands on public administration grow as a result of developments in human, physical, economic, technological and political developments. The precise nature and the magnitude of demands, of course, depend on the degree to which governments commit themselves to direct guidance and management of social and economic development.

The situation of public administration is particularly acute in Pakistan because our needs for administrative capabilities have been changing constantly while the time and resources available for this purpose have been limited. This has meant an accumulation of demands that have remained unfulfilled.

While the availability of public administration capabilities cannot solve problems such as employment, energy crisis, resource deficiency and unsustainable disequilibrium in balance of payments, weaknesses in administrative capabilities can have serious repercussions on the effective use of whatever national resources and opportunities are available for development at a given time. The public administration infrastructure, in fact, greatly influences the quality and outcome of national activities in economic and social development and hence the welfare of the people.

In pre-British days there was nothing like a modern civil service on a competitive basis, a contractual arrangement which provided promotional opportunities according to seniority, conduct and quality of performance. The Mughal Mansabdari system was essentially a graded military service, paid generally by grants of jagirs for military assignments.

The British during their colonial rule gradually built up the civil service organisation as an integrating force, which under its cadre rules, combined the field experience of the districts with the secretariat experience of policy making at the headquarters. A periodical cross-fertilisation of the experiences of districts and headquarters not only tended to bridge communication gaps and conduced to understanding, but also helped in keeping together the governmental structure, despite considerable variations in regional cultures.

The essential characteristic of the administrative system inherited by Pakistan at the time of independence was an elite corps of administrators recruited competitively at an early age for their academic and intellectual abilities and trained as generalists. The system was designed to preserve law and order, collect revenues and provide basic services.

The system aimed at ensuring impartial justice under the rule of law and sought to inculcate respect for equal rights without reference to class or creed. The system was not designed to promote citizen participation in the affairs of government nor was there a great deal of emphasis on accelerating economic development and social changes.

After independence, a variety of experts (Pakistani and foreign) as well as a number of high powered commissions and committees have extensively studied problems across the entire spectrum of administration and offered answers to a large number of questions covering its traditional and developmental aspects. One recalls in this behalf, recommendations made by Egger, Gladieux, Becket and Braibanti, as also the proposals of exalted bodies headed by two former Chief Justices of Pakistan i.e. A.R. Cornelius and Anwar-ul-Haq. The first Benazir government also set up an Administrative Reforms Commission under Mr. Justice Dorab Patel. In mid 1990s, the government set up ‘Good Governance Group’ to develop and implement the good governance reforms agenda. In April 1999 the government issued a 'strategy for improving governance'.

Notwithstanding the exertions and valuable suggestions of learned experts and commissions, the various governments we have been blessed with during the previous six decades have approached the task of administrative reforms slowly, haltingly, hesitantly and at times perversely. The most notable attempt in this behalf, the 1973 reforms had many design faults, its various elements were ill coordinated and its implementation was partial and haphazard.

Unfortunately, on account of lack of adequate appreciation of its role in development process and in the fulfilment of the primary duty of the government regarding the maintenance of law and order as well as the penchant of our rulers for subordinating considerations of efficiency, integrity and public welfare to political / personal loyalty, at present public administration is in a state of disarray and citizens, by and large, with adequate justification regard it as corrupt, irresponsive, wooden and at times even inhuman.

The inadequacies of public administration do not primarily stem from lack of ability, training or experience of bureaucrats. To a considerable extent these can be attributed to our social and political milieu. Unfortunately, long periods of martial law and quasi-martial law and weak representative institutions not only retarded political development but also prevented democracy from being effective. Political parties failed to impose controls on the bureaucracy because of their inability to aggregate the interests of various groups and educate the public by explaining and dramatising critical issues of national concern, Politics in our country has been, by and large focused on personalities, patronage and pelf rather than issues. In a situation wherein there is imbalance between political policy making and bureaucratic policy implementing structures, the political function tends to be appropriated to a considerable extent by bureaucrats. It is a regrettable fact that we have failed to evolve a mechanism which could provide a proper balance between forces demanding bureaucratic accountability to the political leadership and those demanding that career civil servants be insulated from undue political interference.

Attempts by rulers to exploit public services for their selfish manipulations contributed in no small measure to administrative decay.

Circumscription of the role of Public service commissions and the removal of constitutional safeguards designed to protect the bureaucracy from arbitrary, mala-fide and unjust actions of the government also played a significant role in bureaucratic demoralisation.

Successive screenings since 1959 without recourse to legal procedures and contrary to all canons of justice in the civilised world were primarily motivated by the urge of showing the "power' of the rulers and subjecting bureaucrats to "Cromwellian" frightfulness rather than by any genuine concern from eliminating corruption and inefficiency.

These exercises resulted in the creation of a "Kafkaesque' situation for public servants wherein they operated under threatening clouds of fear and uncertainty not knowing who would be punished for what reason, when and how. This led to avoidance of initiative and responsibility by the bureaucracy and abject flattery of the powers that be. Instead of curbing corruption, it enhanced its level. Again, persistent inflation, which is a form of invisible robbery so far as public servants, pensioners and others un-indexed wage and salary earners are concerned has also significantly impoverished, de-motivated and de-moralised public services and has aggravated the vicious phenomenon of corruption which has now assumed prodigious proportions; nothing so weakens public services as long and continued inflation.

It has also to be conceded with regret, that some high level civil servants, for selfish considerations like unmerited out of turn promotions, re-employment after the statutory age of retirement, allotments of plots and agricultural lands etc. debased themselves and became tools for serving the survival interests of their political/ martial law masters. A few amongst them developed political ambitions and even parachuted into representative assemblies and cabinets through resort to 'Byzantine' skills. This had most unfortunate consequences for the growth of democracy as well as the public image of bureaucracy. It may, however be added that the bureaucracy of a country will have all the defects of social character that are endemic to society as a whole. Nepotism, corruption and lack of work ethics will have to be fought on a societal level. In a free society the moral and social forces of the community alone will sustain high standards of integrity.

The role of top public servants is particularly important in assisting government in creating and maintaining an appropriate legal, institutional and policy framework for sustained, robust growth with equity.

Development failures in a large number of countries can be attributed largely to the absence of a mechanism for designing timely and well coordinated measures that could take maximum advantage of the country's potential in a rapidly changing international economic environment, again planners and economic managers in many developing countries have not always succeeded in convincing the political leadership of the grave consequences of ignoring serious economic problems and making economic mistakes. In the last four decades, mismanagement of the economy has been responsible for the downfall of many governments across the globe.