Bureaucratic heads breaking public-private handshakes

LAHORE: The concept of public-private partnership has been grossly misused in Pakistan, particularly in Punjab where most of these companies were headed by bureaucrats drawing insane salaries.

Governments, the world over, establish mostly service delivery companies for which they acquire the services of professionals and businessmen from private sector. These companies improve the service delivery to the citizen as the professionals having worked in private sector and the businessmen know the art of efficient management.

There are no bureaucratic hurdles in their operations. These companies are managed by independent boards that include representatives from both private and public sector. Ideally there are more members from private sector and less from public sector.

Employees in such companies are inducted from outside the bureaucracy after proper advertisement and interviews including written tests.

The former Punjab chief minister was hoodwinked by the bureaucrats as they exploited his enthusiasm to include private sector in public development by inducting their bureaucrat colleagues as the heads of public-private companies through a ‘transparent’ process. The trick was to advertise these posts and shortlist the favoured applicants for final interview. Many capable private sector executives also applied for those posts.

They had the experience and better qualifications and most of them were already getting four to five fold higher salaries than grade 18-19 bureaucrats, but they were never called for interviews. It’s puzzling to note as to why the bureaucrats were preferred over them. These bureaucrats were inducted at 7-15 times the salary they were getting in the government departments they were posted before joining these companies.

From the legal and procedural point of view there seems to be no flaw in their appointment. But it is really surprising that the bureaucracy that is generally not performing well was even considered for these appointments.

If even, for argument’s sake, the appointed bureaucrats were exceptionally brilliant then why they were relieved by their respective departments when there is a dearth of competent officers in the bureaucracy.

Moreover these appointments were against the basic concept of public-private partnership. These companies were formed to speed up the services the bureaucracy generally failed to deliver. If these bureaucrats were as competent as their appointments show then why did they not deliver in their departments?

This concept was misused both at the center and provincial levels but more so in Punjab. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) for instance was formed in 1998 and was headed by a businessman who hired professionals from private sector.

The SMEDA delivered in the first few years by launching a program to upgrade the refrigerated fish trawlers so that 70 percent of the fish that rots in old trawlers could be exported. It gave a plan to upgrade ginning sector of Pakistan. It also prepared the textile vision 2025. It later highlighted the flaws in the marketing of milk and gave a road map for dairy development. After only a few years, bureaucracy infiltrated the top slots at SMEDA and bureaucrats were inducted in many of its projects at high salaries. Now this organisation acts and thinks like bureaucracy.

The Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) brought revolution in skill training in Punjab under its first private sector head. There is a strong desire in the bureaucracy to manage this authority and bureaucrats have often succeeded in this regard.

Its performance has deteriorated over years as even after 20 years, the authority is imparting training to youth on skills that have become redundant. Occasionally when a private sector professional heads it, some new courses are included. The result is that 85 percent of trainees are forced to become self-employed earning paltry amounts even in the best of times.

The previous Punjab government formed 56 companies to improve service delivery in provision of safe drinking water, better agricultural services, planned knowledge-based city with universities, colleges, and residential infrastructure, to build and manage industrial estates and so on. Unfortunately these companies turned out to be sophisticated extensions of bureaucrats who headed them. They had secure jobs in their original departments and they served in new companies at very high salaries and perks. Most of these companies failed to deliver and billions worth of public money was wasted.

There were, however, some exceptions where the private sector professionals managed a few companies quite well. Punjab Industrial Estates Management & Development Company, for instance, has been being managed by private sector for the last one decade and has performed exceptionally well. It owes nothing to the Punjab government and has over Rs25 billion in reserves with which it is constructing new industrial estates.