Government's performance declines with low score of 22 percent for transparency: PILDAT

The federal government earned an overall score of 44% for the Quality of Governance in 2014-2015 but declined on account of transparency with a low score of 22%. According to Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) latest scorecard on the performance of the federal government titled "Federal Scorecard on Quality of Governance in 2014-2015", released here on Monday the PML-N government has emerged strongest in its foreign policy management (74%).
The institute while elaborating the poor performance of the federal government on account of transparency said that it has not yet passed the Right to Information (RTI) Bill, which was passed in February 2014 by the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting and since than the approval is awaited of the federal cabinet to be tabled in the Parliament.
PILDAT's analysis reveals that the quality of governance at the centre has in general improved in the second year of the federal government. The Federal Government received a score of 44%, out of the 27 governance assessment parameters assessed, with showing improvement in performance in 18 parameters and decline in 9 parameters. The Federal Government has emerged strongest in its foreign policy management (74%). Federal Government improved international relations by initiating almost 112 bilateral and/or multilateral peace and reconciliation agreements between Pakistan and other countries in 2014-2015 as compared to 34 in 2013-2014. The Federal Government received the second highest score for Management of Inflation (65%) and third highest for Merit-based Recruitments and Promotions (63%) in the second year of the Government, since assuming office in 2013.
This score card is the second of its kind in this series of federal and provincial score cards on the assessment of the quality of governance in the second year of the governments in Office. Earlier on March 31, 2016 PILDAT has released score cards on comparative assessment of the quality of governance of the provincial governments, which can be found on the PILDAT Website; (http://www.pildat.org/). In this stand-alone assessment of the quality of governance, the federal government received an average score of 42% for rule of law, 44% for management of economy, 50% for administrative effectiveness, and the highest for service delivery at 51%. For social indicators with a score of 30% the PML-N government's performance deteriorated during its second year in Office.
The objective behind PILDAT's initiative on assessment of the Quality of Governance is to highlight key areas of strengths and potential areas requiring improvement in the quality of governance. The initiative is by no means an exercise in finger pointing at the government, but in fact is a collaborative effort intended to enable us in making informed, fact-based assessment regarding governance at the Centre.
Methodology PILDAT has assessed the overall performance of the Federal Government across 27 parameters by calculating percentage change for over 100 governance indicators from 2013-2014 to 2014-2015. Scores were assigned on a scale of 1-5 depending on the magnitude of the percentage increase or decrease. The scores of the Federal Government are not to be compared with the Provincial Governments since the Provinces were scored under a different methodology and relative to each other. The data for the Federal Score Card was requested by PILDAT and provided by the Federal Government. It was supplemented with published surveys (ie Labor Force Survey, Pakistan Economic Survey, PSLM etc). The Scores were calculated by aggregating policy (25% weightage) and implementation scores (75% weightage).