Reforming Pakistan's Civil Service, International Crisis Group, 16 February 2010
EXCERPT: "If Pakistan’s deteriorating civil service is not urgently repaired, public disillusionment and resentment could be used by the military to justify another spell of authoritarian rule. Reforming Pakistan’s Civil Service, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the structure and functioning of Pakistan’s civil bureaucracy. It identifies critical flaws as well as measures to make it more accountable and able to provide essential public services. Military rule has left behind a demoralised and inefficient bureaucracy that was used to ensure regime survival. Low salaries, insecure tenure, obsolete accountability mechanisms and political interference have spawned widespread corruption and impunity. If the flaws of an unreformed bureaucracy are not urgently addressed, the government risks losing public support. 'Public perception is that the country’s 2.4 million civil servants are widely unresponsive and corrupt, while bureaucratic procedures are cumbersome and exploitative', says Samina Ahmed, Crisis Group’s South Asia Project Director. 'Bureaucratic dysfunction and low capacity undermine governance, providing opportunities to the military to subvert the democratic transition and to extremists to destabilise the state'."
Read the full news release.
Read the full report.
Related articles:
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics launched, DAWN, 16 February 2010
Rule of law and civil service, DAWN, 24 January 2010
Promotion in bureaucracy challenged in Supreme Court, DAWN, 30 September 2009
What's the problem with Pakistan?, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 31 March 2009
The minds of civil servants [op-ed], The News International, 26 February 2009
Related posts:
President and top court spar over judges, 15 February 2010
Public dismayed by crisis of governance, 18 January 2010
The challenges of Pakistani governance, 13 January 2010
Pakistan slips five places in Transparency International corruption index, 18 November 2009
Challenges of Pakistan's governance system, 26 October 2009
