THE LONG-TERM STRUCTURAL REFORM AGENDA

The long-term agenda is derived from the analysis presented in the previous chapters of this volume and
highlights the salient reforms in various areas that can begin to make a difference in Pakistan's economic
landscape. This list is by no means exhaustive and there are many othet areas that can be included.
These have been PUtposely omitted because of the capacity constraints of the organs of state. Non-
state-centric institutions are also not discussed here although these should be able to have some
positive impact. Below are some of the key issues and necessary steps requited:

1. There is a need for refotms of the electoral process. Constituencies should be delimited afresh
on the basis of the new population census and electoral rolls should be prepared from fresh
data generated through this census. The election commission and chief election commissioner
should be given unfettered powets to otganize the elections by directly taking control of the
administrative apparatus of the provincial and the district governments. This will obviate the
need to induct caretaker governments which have only proved to be disruptive of the process of
conducting elections smoothly. Electronic machines should be used for voting. Candidates for
the national and provincial assemblies should be carefully screened and those who do not meet
the eligibility criteria shouldbe disqualified from contesting elections by the election
commission. The recent Supreme Court judgment on 'Panama Gate' has provided an opening fat
the determination of the eligibility of the candidates under Articles 62 and 63 of the
Constitution. The unsettled question is about the scope of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
and the correct process in reaching a conclusion on the disqualification of candidates under
these articles.
2. The political parties themselves must institute democratic contests within their organizations. In
the I950s, for instance, the elections for party office-bearers were held at the gtass-root level.
Those who were elected by the members through popular and transparent voting were in a
position to stand up to their leaders. Since the I970s, this process has been substituted by the
discretionary choice made by a powerful party leader at all levels, nominating the central
working committee members, allocating party tickets for rhe national and provincial assemblies,
and the senare. He also selects the ministers for the federal and provincial governments if his
party achieves power. Such a high concentration of power in the hands of a single individual is
inimical to the essence of democratic governance which is based on debate, consultation, and
consensus.

Constitutional amendments have stripped an individual member of the assembly from

voting according to his conscience. Thus dissent and differences of opinions within a party have
given way to sycophancy and pleasing the boss at all costs. The pendulum has swung from
horsetrading and changing party affiliations to obeying the dictates of a single individual. The
combination of the offices of the party chief and rhe chief executive being vested in a single
individual has withered away whatever little accountability could be expected.

3. The Eighteenth Amendment and 7th NFC have very rightly devolved administrative, legal, and
financial powers and authority from the federal to the provincial governments. However, this
 devolution remains incomplete as the provinces have not transferred the powers and resources
funher down to the local governments where most of the interaction between an ordinary
citizen and the government takes place. Whether it is law and order and security, schooling for
the children, immunization and healthcarc, supply of drinking water, and sanitation, it is the
local government that delivers these essential services. Since 2008 the powers of the local
governments have been reassumed by rhe provincial governments. The proposed laws setting
up the local governments are a big srep backward from rhe Local Government Ordinance 2001.
With rhe exceprion of KP,the provincial governments enjoy enormous powers under
rhe proposed laws ro keep rhe elecred local governments subservient to them. Under such a
set-up, the elected representatives at the local level will remain imporent. The disconnect
between rhe wishes of the provincial governments, along with the members of the provincial
assemblies, ro centralize all powers in their hands and the aspirarions of rhe people to access
basic public services ar rheir doorsteps must be resolved. Attempts to strengthen democratic
governance are bound to fail in the absence of decentralizarion of decision-making, delegation
of powers, devolurion of aurhoriry, and de-concentrarion of resources.
4. The administrative machinery of the government, i.e. the civil services as a whole, has broken
down. As pointed our earlier, every crisis thar Pakisran has faced for rhe last many years, i.e. rhe
securiry of person and properry and poor law and order, energy shorrages, delays in rhe
administration of jusrice, ghosrschools and absentee reachers, missing drugs and malfuncrioning
healrh faciliries,and piles of garbage in the urban areas, ean all be traced to insrirurional decay
and governance deficit. Reforms in police, of the civil service, revenue administration, land
management, judiciary, and delivery of social services must be undertaken to ser rhe country in
the righr direcrion. A road map has already been prepared and the Report of rhe National
Commission for Government Reforms (NCGR) sers out detailed recommendations. The civil
services of rhe early days used to amact the besr and brightest talent until rhe late 1970s. Their
security of tenure guaranteed by the constitution was withdrawn and since rhen poliricizarion of
the bureaucracy has seriously impaired irs capacity to remain neutral and objective which is the
hallmark of an efficient civil service. The challenge is to revitalize rhem to enable them to regain
rheir earlier lustre.
5. 5. The dispensation of justice in Pakistan has become time-consuming, expensive, convolured,
and unnecessarily layered. Criminal and Civil Procedure Codes and the Evidence Act have been
modified in the UK itself, where they had their origin, but have remained unchanged in Pakistan.
The backlog of millions of cases pending in the lower courtS has nullified the deterrent effect of
punishment on criminals, defaulters, and other violators of the law. State revenues, amounting
to hundreds of billions of rupees are stuck up due to litigation by tax violators and the grant of
indefinite stay orders. Bank loan defaulters enjoy a free ride because of the unending stay
orders and appeals and lack of progress in execution of decrees granted by the courts
themselves. Property titles and exchanges of deeds have lost their sanctity because of the
prolonged disputes and complex processes prescribed by the courts. Detection, investigation,
and prosecution of cases are so sloppy that the conviction rate is miserably low. Criminals get
off scot-free and continue to engage in their nefarious activities without any sense of fear.
 6. 6. The Freedom of Information Act promulgated by the federal government is overly diluted and
defanged. It indeed does nothing to facilitate the flow of information into public hands. The
Right to Information Act in India has played a major role in keeping public servants and political
leaders on their toes because of the fear that their actions and misdeeds could become public
knowledge and embarrass them. Civil society organizations and the media have played a crucial
role in accessing information and data under the Act. A similar, effective, piece of legislation in
Pakistan and curtailment of the Official Secrets Act can be an effective tool in ensuring
transparency in governance. Provinciallegislarion, particularly those in KP and Punjab, are an
improvement but the requisite institutional arrangements have not yet been made.
Governments that do not have much to fear and believe in transparency will benefit.
7. 7. Parliament is expected to ensure that checks and balances are in place to curb the excesses of
the executive. But this, however, is hardly the case in Pakistan. There is little legislative
accountability to citizens, weak market oversight, and indifference in responses to citizen
demands. The parliamentary committees, such as the public accounts committee, through
public hearings can exert a sobering pre-emptive influence on the government departments,
ministries, and agencies. They could ensure that public expenditure is underpinned by value for
money and that waste, inefficiencies. and irregularities are minimized. However, the
partisanship shown in the committees' deliberations and the lack of technical expertise among
the staff assigned to these committees have weakened their watchdog and oversight functions.
Strengthening these committees would help in excning effective control over the misuse of
power and resources by the executive.
8. 8. Finally, the management practices in the government need to be modernized and overhauled.
Over-centralization, concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister and the
provincial chief has resulted in diffused responsibility, absence of clear accountability inertia,
and lack of commitment. Elongated hierarchical chains, consultation for the sake of form and
ptocedures rather than substance, turf-building and turfprotection, and a tendency to passthe
buck has created a big wedge between promise and performance. The rules of business have to
be rcwrirten to assign clear responsibilities to the ministries and providing them with the
requisite authority and resources to fulfil their obligations and hold them accountable for
results. There should be inter-ministerial coordination and conflict resolution at the level of the
cabinet secretary, secretaries' committees, cabinet suh-committees, and the cabinet.

The catalogue of comprehensive reforms set out above is easy to visualize but extremely complex and
difficult to implement. The challenge of reforming these insdtutions is formidable because the vested
interests desirous of perpetuating the status quo are politically powetful and the relations between
them and the political leadership and beneficiaries of the existing system are so strong that they cannot
be easilywished away.Elected governments with an eye on short-term electoral cycles are not inclined
to incur the pains that such reforms are likely to inflict when it is quite likely that the long-term gains are
likely to accrue to a different political party. Authoritarian governments are not effective because they
do not enjoy legitimacy and therefore cannot sustain reforms. Changing the form in which institutions
function is a slow and difficult process requiring, in addition to significant political will, fundamental
measures to reduce the opponunity and incentives for particular groups to capture economic rents.
It will not be possible to execure these reforms unless all the major political parties agree to them and
reach a consensus so that partisanship and point-scoring do not come in the way of their
implementation. Civil servants who have retreated into passivity can be reactivated. motivated, and
mobilized if they are certain that the risks of retribution and penalties entailed in implementing these
reforms are likely to be minimal. Politicians of all persuasions must realize that the growing disaffection
against political parties and leaders in Pakistan, the rapid spread of violence and intolerance, the tising
popularity of and respect for the armed forces, and the widening gap between the expectations of the
general public and delivery by the government demand a drastic change in their past conduct, practices,
and behaviour. The ultimate beneficiaries of such altered behaviour would not only he the citizens of
Pakistan but also the political parties themselves. The cynicism and wide distrust of politicians in society
at large could be replaced by improved access and delivery of essential basic services, thus bolstering
people's confidence in their politicians. Assuming that this long-term agenda receives broad-based
acceptance by the political parties and theit willingness to implement it is demonstrated, the next
question is: how to execute such an agenda? This would require strong institutional support across all
different sectors. Institutional strengthening, therefore, becomes the sine qua non for building the
capacity to implement the reform agenda in an intelligently phased sequence of actions.