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WEEKLY
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| A square peg in a round hole |
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Saturday, June 27, 2009
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: Politicisation of the civil bureaucracy is at all-time high now, as the external influence in the bureaucratic affairs has reached an extent where the institution of civil services is about to crumble.
The bureaucracy is faced with such a sorry state of affairs that the MPs and politicians are openly recommending the postings and transfers of their favourites. The dilemma is that the Prime Minister’s Secretariat is found generous in forwarding such recommendations, which are illegal under the rules, to the Establishment Division and other concerned agencies for implementation.
Sources said that though under the conduct rules inviting such an external influence in service matters is a clear-cut case of “misconduct” and liable to punishment, the fact of the matter is that the personal dossiers of a very large number of civil servants include “letter of recommendations” from politicians, MNAs and even party leaders. Such documents are ‘charge-sheet’ against the government servants but the Prime Minister’s Secretariat brazenly forwards them to the concerned department along with its own directives.
“Politicisation of bureaucracy was never like this before,” a senior PM Secretariat official said, adding it is the consequence of mounting external influence into service matters that highly embarrassing appointments are being made, which result into inter-service rivalries.
It is the consequence of such whimsical appointments that the Foreign Service of Pakistan has simply gone mad over the appointment of a grade-20 DMG officer as ambassador to Paris.
Extremely upset over the appointment, the foreign service officials have already approached the foreign secretary and the foreign minister to get this appointment cancelled as the prized post is meant for the officers of the foreign service, not the District Management Group.
In their petition, they said that the appointment of Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, DMG Officer of 1987 batch, as ambassador of Pakistan to France, is unprecedented, demoralising and most importantly a violation of the rights of the FSP officers.
There is no explanation from the government side why a DMG officer has been offered a foreign assignment meant for career diplomats. In their petition, the FSP officers said that the foreign service was created to manage Pakistan’s external relations with a view to protecting and promoting Pakistan’s security and development interests. Given the very special needs and requirements of this service group, the FSP officers are trained throughout their careers, by way of courses focusing on language, territorial and functional specialisations. They are professionally exposed and trained through overseas, often tough diplomatic assignments to effectively take up responsibilities involving critical national security and development interests of the country.
But the government decided to hand over a key foreign mission like Paris to a non-professional official while currently 53 FSP Officers in BPS-20 and above are awaiting ambassadorial assignments.
Moreover, the man picked up for Paris is so junior that none of his batch-mates in the foreign service has so far been given any ambassadorial position.In another case of favouritism, the prime minister opted to appoint a BPS-20 police officer Kaleem Imam as inspector general of police Islamabad, a BPS-22 post.
Kaleem too enjoys good reputation but his appointment has caused unease among many within the Police Service of Pakistan.Before his present assignment, Kaleem Imam has served as member of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s personal staff.
His appointment is extraordinary for the reason that Imam has been made inspector general of Islamabad though he has not served as deputy inspector general (DIG) or regional police officer (RPO) even for a single day. After being transferred to his present position, he has become the youngest ever IG Police in the history of Pakistan.
Though not realised by the rulers, the politicisation of the bureaucracy has distorted the very structure of this institution. The highly politicised postings and transfers have left the civil servants frustrated and disillusioned. “Our bad luck is that the rulers do not realise how seriously such politicised appointments affect the performance of the government and its service delivery for general masses,” a senior bureaucrat lamented.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
