Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Friday the government was firmly committed to undertakingstructural reforms in bureaucracy to make it efficient and responsive to the needs of time. While chairing a meeting of the Task Force on Civil Services Reforms, the Prime Minister said Pakistan Civil Service was best in the region during the decades of 60s and 70s but regretted that political interference caused deterioration in the bureaucracy.
The PM regretted that bureaucracy was heavily politicised during the last two tenures, which resulted in inefficiency and created a fear among bureaucrats. The existing government system could not compete with private sector where merit determined the positions and seniority, he added.
Imran Khan said that mission of the government was to end political interference in bureaucracy and make merit based appointments, adding the government would provide full protection to bureaucrats in security of tenure against any post to ensure continuity of the service delivery.
The Prime Minister directed the task force not to hesitate in making bold recommendations in the best interests of the country. The government is committed to de-politicise and insulate bureaucracy from all kinds of political pressures. The Prime Minister said that no system could sustain or deliver if it lacked accountability and merit, therefore, there was need to restructure and reform bureaucracy to make it pro-progress and innovative.
Khan said there was a dire need to promote professionalism in every sphere and the government was committed to protect integrity and security of tenure of bureaucrats so that they could devote their energies towards translating political vision into reality.
"We have to attract best minds to serve the country," he said while adding there was abundance of talent in the country but the challenge was that the existing system did not allow talent to emerge. The Prime Minister said the political class also needed to be trained to deal with the changing times.