Basics of governance

I.A. Rehman  

THE government is reported to be persuading an international watchdog to review the indicators it uses to determine whether a country can be described as a failed state. The effort may well succeed. Far more challenging is the task of convincing the Pakistani people that the state is functioning efficiently.

The official spokespersons are confident that everything is in order. They do not tire of saying that all institutions are working in accordance with their mandates. On the other hand many people argue that the state has become totally dysfunctional. Both of these extreme opinions are likely to be rejected in favour of the view that the affairs of the state are not being managed as they should be, that the administration is slipping up in matters across the board and that the system of internal checks has collapsed. Several recent occurrences support this formulation.

The governments of Sindh and Punjab were pushed into a confrontation by the Irsa decision to release water into the Chashma-Jhelum canal. The decision was taken by an acting chairman of the authority and in the face of strong opposition from the Sindh and federal representatives. The Sindh government promptly shouted foul and vowed to fight for its rights while the Punjab government clamoured for its rights. But neither side bothered to present a case people with common intelligence could understand. It took the acting chief of Irsa over a week to mumble an explanation of sorts, but by then huge damage had been done.

Many questions arise. Why was Irsa — a key institution dealing with explosive issues — without a regular head? Did the decision-makers realise the consequences of their actions? Was no one in the higher echelons of authority responsible for monitoring the decisions of Irsa and their political fallout? The answers to these simple questions will confirm the lack of forethought and administrative efficiency among the decision-makers.

Then there was the news of a change in the electoral map of Hyderabad district. Shortly afterwards the notification was withdrawn. The authors of the first notification should have known that the party in whose interest Arbab Ghulam Rahim had carried out his grand scheme of gerrymandering is a part of the coalition government and it would not swallow the hurt. This was obviously another example of thoughtlessness in public administration.

The electronic media caused panic in countless homes when it announced a new electricity tariff. The announcement was withdrawn shortly afterwards and it was said that a senior Pepco official had released a circular he was not authorised to issue without clearance from competent officials. The unsavoury message to the people was that no system was in place to guard against the issuance of unauthorised orders. There was no way of ascertaining that no other unauthorised order was in the field.

Finally, we had the most sensational whodunit story of the year (or many years, perhaps): the Punjab Assembly resolution against the media.

The first defence plea was that the mover of the resolution had acted on his own and that the resolution did not reflect the views of his party. There was no sign of embarrassment at the conclusion that no mechanism was in place to prevent members of the party concerned from wildly firing their missiles. Since all other parties supported the resolution, they fully matched the offending party in terms of lack of direction and discipline. Among the many funny explanations offered, the most hilarious was that the resolution reflected the views of members of the assembly and not of the assembly itself.

The story of a lone wolf out to teach the media a lesson has since been replaced with more juicy, or more embarrassing versions. While God knows best, the most credible explanation is that while trying to voice their collective grievance the principal characters in the drama overestimated their ability to get away with their mischief and failed to take into consideration the media’s accession to strength since it started wielding the hatchet on behalf of powerful parties.

In any case, the affair of the anti-media resolution has shown that the administrators’ tendency to act without due deliberation and in violation of their mandate has spilled over into almost all other areas of public activity.

Leave aside the glaring instances of administrative failures and deficiencies. In today’s Pakistan the lack of the three essential ingredients of good governance — adherence to law, accountability and respect for citizens — is known to any citizen who comes into contact with the police, the only face by which most Pakistanis identify the state.

This is not to say that the police do not perform. They do record FIRs, they do investigate cases, they do catch thieves, high officials do hear complaints against subordinates and so on. However, nobody can claim that every time a person makes a complaint an FIR is registered, that each crime is properly investigated, that each suspect is duly prosecuted, and that higher officials always fulfil the demands of adequate and effective oversight. There is too much use of discretion and it is not always on the side of justice. The reception a citizen gets from a police official often depends upon his class, wealth or connections, and higher authorities usually lean on the side of brothers in service or political bosses than on an ordinary citizen’s.

The main problem is that the threshold of permissible deviation from rules has been raised dangerously high. Non-registration of FIRs, use of weapons not issued by the state, running of unauthorised detention centres and torture cells, and extra-legal killings are some of the more blatant violations of the law that are blinked at by the government unless an awful incident makes headlines. No state that permits such things can be called efficient or civilised.

Let us for a moment stop looking at the apex of the pyramid of power and concentrate on its base where a great mess can be seen, a mess made by abuse of authority and lack of order and justice. A government is not made good by the quality of its leaders’ rhetoric or the glitter of their processions; its goodness is measured by the way its minions treat the humblest and the weakest of citizens and the ability of its superior officials to ensure even-handed justice. These are the basics of governance that are becoming increasingly rare in Pakistan.
Courtesy: DAWN

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