Hijacked by bureaucracy?
Imtiaz Gul, Chief Editor, MATRIX MAG
Dear Prime Minister,
Your countrymen read and heard with great passion your tirade at Davos, Switzerland, on how “the corrupt system (status quo) in Pakistan remains the biggest challenge to reforms.
But, the actions on ground don’t reflect this zeal any more. Your style of decision-making and implementation has injected immense sense of despondency in the hearts and minds even of your vanguard and organic supporters.
Access to your office has considerably shrunken. Bureaucrats and “converts” to the Pakistan Tehreeke Insaf (PTI) PTI have raised steel-frames around you, and thus blinded you to the real world out there.
At the moment, PTI’s political core seems virtually sidelined. Cancer, for instance, has incapacitated your lifelong comrade Naeemul Haq.
Asad Omar, who was literally thrown out of the cabinet allegedly for dragging his feet on the deal with IMF, is back but in a secondary function as the minister for planning. What was Asad Omar’s fault when he was replaced with Hafeez Shaikh, a former World Bank and IMF advisor, as the minister for finance? What was it that Asad Omar failed but Mr. Shaikh achieved? Was it the $ 6 billion package that opened the floodgates to hyper-inflation and has had a crippling effect on people at large?
Your supporters are still looking for answers into the ignominious treatment meted out to Asad Omar.
Is it a coincidence that Jehanzeb Khan, a career bureaucrat, has now been placed at the Planning Commission to fail Asad Omar as Minister for and Special Initiatives? Jehanzeb Khan had earlier served under Asad as the chairman of the Federal Bureau of Revenues (FBR), the revenue collection body under the ministry of finance. Is he the nemesis of Asad, and hence now assisting him at the Planning Commission?
You sacrificed another organic party cohort Amir Kayani for an astronomical increase in drugs’ prices. He happened to be on top of the ministry when a Court order on adjustment and rationalisation of drugs’ prices was implemented. The decision to allow this raise had already been taken during the PML-N government.
If Kayani was culpable why was no case instituted against him?
Where is Iftikhar Durrani, another long-time associate, who was among the people who helped shape PTI narratives on various issues? The circle around you engineered Durrani’s exit on the pretext that he was needed to help the party for elections in former FATA districts in the northwestern regions. Where is he now?
Another casualty of the ever-growing “bureaucratisation” of the decision-making is Shehryar Afridi – your long-term associate. You chucked him out for Ejaz Shah for reasons best known to you.
Bureaucracy – epitomised by Azam Khan – a known supporter of the Awami National Party (ANP), Arbab Shehzad, whom you plucked out of KP to assist you as Advisor on Establishment Affairs, and Jehanzeb Khan- currently epitomise the bureaucratisation of your governance.
Haven’t they emasculated, and thus blunted political decision-making?
Who would you ascribe the wheat flour shortage to? Bureaucrats surrounding you or your party members? If the former, then who will be made accountable for failing in this primary function of governance – assessment, management and forecast? If the latter, then where are the veterans?
This latest crisis – clearly driven by the vested interest and those who have have earlier been in bed with your avowed political opponents – exemplifies the inefficiency and the lack of vision within the key governance echelons, literally led by the bureaucracy.
People like Nadeem Afzal Chan, Khusro Bakhtiar, Razzaq Dawood, Nadeem Babar and Dr.Firdos Ashiq Awan represent the typical class of political opportunists i.e. the status quo who simply parachuted into your party after gauging which way the wind was blowing.
Your followers still remember your repeated vows to “fight the status quo” but all those who helped shape the PTI narrative for the paradigm shift are all out.
Any introspection Mr. Prime Minister, particularly after your pronouncements at Davos, where you once again highlighted how the corrupt status quo has let down Pakistan?
You probably missed outburst by Shabbar Zaidi, the FBR chairman, against the bureaucrat-loaded taxation system at an interaction with businessmen (January 21). He too faces the daunting task of blunting the the sinister scheming by the bureaucracy.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, former prime minister, had failed in insulating himself against the deeply entrenched bureaucratic vested interest and you saw what happened to him. Your case – as of now – does not seem different either. Have your for mere survival unconsciously surrendered power to the bureaucracy?
Mr.Prime Minister,
Sharifs had one Albatros i.e. Fawad Hasan Fawad. You have at least two Albatros’ around you. But there is a fundamental difference; Fawad diligently and served his political masters.
The key people around you, however, appear to be pulling down their political boss – digging ever deeper by elbowing hunted out the PTI core. Are you currently not surrounded by lynchpins of the status quo – both bureaucrats and political opportunists.?
Mistaking an Albatros for a saviour can be fatally damaging and that is what is happening to you and your anti-status quo ideals. The balance at the moment is heavily tilted in favour of the remnants of the colonial bureaucracy.
Dear Prime Minister, the bureaucracy has also paralysed your eyes and ears i.e the civilian intelligence outfit called the Intelligence Bureau (IB), an essential element of information, on-ground risk assessments and preemptive strategic forecasting.
Your opponents invested in it in the last decade or so. They continue to lead the IB and indirectly serving the interests of all anti-PTI forces.
People at large and your party workers have endured an overdose of anti-graft and anti-status quo rhetoric. Contrary to popular expectations, you continue to slide into the hands of the status quo which is having a field day. The only way to remove the prevailing sense of despondency is a call back to the core ideals, not abandoning them.
