Same old story

Same old story A joke doing the rounds at wedding ceremonies in Pakistan refers to a mouse dancing at a lion’s wedding. When asked the reason for its rather disproportionate joy, the mouse reveals that it had also been a lion before getting married. I am not sure how true this is for marriage but it seems the elections have had a similar effect on the stature of the ruling party. Tall claims about the upholding of merit and zero tolerance for corruption have fallen flat. The appointment of qualified professionals to head various government-run enterprises was a major talking point in the lead-up to the elections. Applications from qualified professionals were invited through half-page advertisements soon after the newly elected government took charge. Unfortunately, the zeal did not last. A notification was issued by the Establishment Division in January to make exceptions for the list of organisations whose heads were to be appointed through a thorough selection procedure: as many as 23 organisations that were initially on the list were excluded and individuals were to be appointed to head these organisations via direct appointments. Human resource has never been a priority for any government in Pakistan. To cut a long story short, now, there is hardly an organisation of note where appointments are to be made via the selection procedure promised by the government in light of the Supreme Court judgment in the Khawaja Muhammad Asif case. This stated that “to ensure fundamental rights a commission headed by and comprising two other competent and independent members having impeccable integrity is required to be constituted by the federal government through an open merit-based process having a fixed tenure of four years to ensure appointments in statutory bodies, autonomous bodies, semi-autonomous bodies, regulatory authorities, to ensure the appointment of all government-controlled corporations, autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies etc”. The Federal Commission for Selection of Heads of Public Sector Organisations was indeed formed by the government but it has done nothing so far. We have an experienced government that knows how to make every move plausible. The real objective of allowing direct appointments is to appoint blue-eyed boys to coveted public-sector posts but the stated reason is that these organisations are functioning under the Companies Ordinance where the top appointments can only be filled under the procedure laid down in the Companies Act. No law, act or statute should be in violation of the principle of ensuring fundamental rights such as meritocracy. A cursory analysis of some of the key appointments made by the government recently reveals a lot. The appointment of the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, for example, is an intriguing one as Dr Mukhtar Ahmed was rejected for appointment to the same position by the Prime Minister’s Office a couple of months ago. What caused this change of heart? Similarly, Pakistan State Oil presents a bizarre scenario: Amjad Pervez Janjua, an individual currently being investigated by the FIA and the National Accountability Bureau, was appointed managing director on the prime minister’s directive for three months but continued to work for over a year until recently, when the Standing Committee for the Senate termed his appointment illegal beyond the initial three months. Dr Nadeem Javed has been appointed the chief economist of Pakistan by relaxing experience requirements. “The choice is either to keep the post vacant or have a trade-off,” commented Ahsan Iqbal, the minister for planning and development. Who could have thought that a country that produced economists such as Mahbub-ul-Haq would one day look for such trade-offs? The problem is not the lack of able men but an absence of the will to bring them in, because they would not be the puppets that our rulers love. The government first takes an eternity to appoint somebody to such positions and when it does, it is usually in absolute disregard of the principles it stressed during pre-election days. When the judiciary reverses such actions through its rulings, there is further delay and greater paralysis. Human resource has never been a priority for any government in Pakistan. It is not surprising that reform in the education or health sectors is non-existent, since these hardly make for a catchy election slogan. Nawaz Sharif, addressing his election campaign rallies, asked voters to give his party a clear majority. People kept their end of the bargain but at the other end, it’s the same old story. The so-called azadi march might just see thousands of people joining in, not because they are convinced at the alleged lack of credibility of the elections or because they want reform in the electoral process, but because the rulers have failed to realise that one can fool some people for some time, not all the people, all the time.