Amid all the talk of anti-corruption, and dismissal-no-dismissal of top bureaucrats as well as actual purges, inquires and prosecution by NAB these days, almost everyone tends to forget one important thing: the system is rotten from the bottom of the pyramid, and no number of honest officials at the top can fix things overnight. That’s one of the many harrowing reminders in Ishrat Husain’s recent book ‘Governing the ungovernable’. Here’s what he argues!
The primary interaction between the citizen and state happens not through the secretary level bureaucrat but through the third and second cadre of employees who are “low paid, ill-equipped, poorly educated and rude functionaries such as the patwari, thanedar and sub-divisional officer enjoying enormous discretionary powers and engaging in rampant corruption in efficiency and poor governance”.
In theory, and as per the rules of business that assign the responsibilities and obligations to various cadre of employees in the bureaucracy and public sector at large, the terminal responsibility of a well-oiled government machinery lies with the top officials. But that’s what the book says, which hasn’t taken into account the reality, because in actual practice, the informal but effective power rests with the lower echelons of bureaucracy.
Be it individual citizens or micro and SME-level businesses, their day to day interaction is with the lower cadre staff. The clerks, patwaris, SHO, inspectors, court readers and other such staff “enjoy enormous discretionary power and engage in institutionalized corruption but remain and unscathed from any measure of accountability because they do not have any formal authority and cannot be held responsible in the strict legal sense.”
Even if there was a well-functioning mechanism of complains against members of the lower cadre of bureaucracy, the system does not always work given the absence of law, practice and awareness of whistleblowing acts in the country.
Presently, if a person makes a complain to the top officials, then if the top official is working hand and glove with the lower cadre staff, then the complainant will face “harassment and prosecution”. If the top official is honest and not in cahoots with its subordinates, then as soon as the top official is transferred – and we all know how fast is the game of musical chairs in the bureaucracy – the complainant will come to face harassment and prosecution; ergo postponed punishment as Dr Ishrat puts it. Head I win; tail you lose! That’s the kind of confident mindset corrupt government employees have at lower rungs of bureaucracy, which gives birth to explicit corruption – such as bribery – and inefficiency, which by some reading is another form of corruption.
There is no easy way to fix this. First, most people believe that when it comes to civil servants and public sector employees, only officer class or top and senior managers are accountable. They liken it to the private sector where the CEO can fix things, or fire people. In the public sector, the top official cannot simply fire a lower cadre employee with due and complicated procedures that take its due course.
And procedures are indeed important; just as a man who drops dead in his neighbourhood graveyard cannot be immediately buried in that graveyard without due procedures. The burial will have to take due course; religion regardless. Besides, cases of corruption and inefficiency in public sector are not always cut and dry that can leave to immediate termination of job.
Second, there is a sense of tribe among various cadres of government employees. If a citizen or a micro or SME business complaints against one, and that employee gets fired or suspended, other members of that tribe eventually haunt the complainant.
Third, the idea of public accountability in civil service is not something the government sector is very much fond of, grade and ethics regardless. Colonial heritage and long years of military dictatorship have a left a deep imprint of what Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto used to call ‘naukarshahi’ (rule of civil servants). They imagine themselves as rulers rather than public service providers.
Thankfully there are ways to fix, though there no quick fixes. A host of them Dr. Ishrat has offered in his book. These include fixing paygrade, setting up a system of trainings, reporting lines and so forth. BR Research would like to offer three more. One, as PM Khan has promised, implementation of whistleblower act across the country and both federal and provincial level and ensuring necessary awareness campaign thereof.
Second, move towards e-governance mechanism in general and in particular public monitoring of cases brought forward by whistle-blowers via an e-governance mechanism that enables the journalists and member of civil society to look at basic facts of the complaint, and pace of action taken on it together with reasons thereof as and how the complaint evolves.
Third, fully implement the right to information at both federal and provincial level, to not only push transparency in the governance machinery but also to inform the public the number and type of corrective actions that were taken against lower cadres of corrupt government employees in a given period, amidst what other improvements the department brought at the level of primary interaction between the citizen and state.
The man who has written extensive list of specific proposals and reports to fix public service (Dr Ishrat) nowadays has the ears of the man who ran his campaign on anti-corruption (Imran Khan). The next five years is probably the last straw of hope many people have, failing in which may become the straw that broke the camel’s back.
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