Is there any difference over here in Mera Bharat Mahan An article in Pak News paper The News Good-for-nothing ministries at the cost of public money Thursday, July 02, 2009
By Ansar Abbasi ISLAMABAD: Almost half of the federal ministries have hardly any work to do but they were created and still maintained as independent entities at the cost of taxpayers’ money merely because it suits both the political masters and their subservient but crafty civilian bureaucracy. A lot could be saved by the government by rationalising its size and slashing the bloated bureaucracy but neither the rulers nor the bureaucrats pay any attention towards this blatant wastage of public money. The federal government today maintains all time high number of federal ministries and divisions i.e. 44 ministries and 46 divisions, but almost half of them rarely see file work of the type for which such federal entities are created. It is learnt that more than 20 federal ministries/divisions are so worthless that they have workload even less than that of an ordinary wing of a federal ministry or division like Finance, Establishment, Cabinet or Commerce. But their retention is vital to maintain not only the present brigade of federal ministers and ministers of state but also to have additional top level posts for bureaucracy to have more and more federal secretaries. Details obtained by The News reveal that in more than 17 federal ministries the administrative hierarchy is such that each of this kind of ministry/division has two deputy secretaries, one joint secretary and a secretary, who serves as the administrative head of the ministry/division led by a federal minister or minister of state or in some cases by both. There are even some ministries that do not even have a joint secretary thus creating a situation where federal secretary is working with a few deputy secretaries of BS-19 officers. In case of one federal ministry, three out of four posts of section officers are currently held by private secretary and office superintendents, whereas the ministry does not have any deputy secretary but just one joint secretary led by a federal secretary. On the contrary the federal ministries and divisions like Finance, Commerce, Interior, Establishment and Cabinet have dozens of sections officers, deputy secretaries, joint secretaries, additional secretaries/senior joint secretaries. Workload in such busy ministries and divisions is enormous but still the federal secretaries heading these entities remain well in control as far as the disposal of file work is concerned. As against them, those heading mini ministries, created to adjust the bloated cabinet ministers and top bureaucrats, mostly find their tables generally free from files and other official papers. Details show that the ministries/divisions such as Culture, Youth Affairs, Human Rights, Inter-Provincial Coordination, Livestock and Dairy Development, Minorities, Narcotics Control, Social Welfare and Special Education, Overseas Pakistanis, Postal Service, Investment, Population, Sports, Statistic, Tourism, Textile Industry and Women Development have just one joint secretary each and one or two deputy secretaries just like a wing of federal ministries like Interior, Finance, Establishment etc. The Revenue Division does not have a joint secretary or deputy secretary. The Social Welfare and Special Education Ministry is unique to have a long hierarchy but not in pyramid shape. This ministry has three deputy secretaries, one joint secretary, one additional secretary and one federal secretary. The Ministry of Human Rights has one joint secretary but there is no deputy secretary under him whereas out of four posts of section officers one is held by a duly appointed section officer but the rest of three posts are being occupied by two office superintendents and a private secretary. The Special Initiatives Ministry does not have any joint secretary; therefore, the secretary in this particular ministry works with two deputy secretaries, which means under BS-22 officer his immediate juniors are in BS-19. The ministries like Ports and Shipping, Zakat and Usher, States and Frontier Regions and Parliamentary Affairs are tiny establishments but each of them has two joint secretaries. According to sources, the government could save a lot if the bloated size of the federal secretariat is rationalised through merger of the federal ministries and divisions. These sources said that for need of additional slots for ministers and federal secretaries, such a ruthless bifurcation of the previous ministries/divisions has been done that what a section of a ministry used to do in the past has been assigned to a full fledge ministry. These sources said that the Postal Department was used to be handled by a section officer in the Ministry of Communication but today we have a full-fledged Ministry of Postal Services. The Communication Ministry in the past also used to look after all the work presently assigned to the ministries like Railways, Ports and Shipping, Postal Services etc. Similarly once the Ministry of Sports, Culture, Youth and Tourism has been today converted into four independent ministries/divisions. The past’s Ministry of Women Development, Social Welfare, Special Education and Population too has been divided into three ministries/divisions. The Ministry of Law in the past used to have Parliamentary Affairs, Human Rights as its parts but now they too are separate ministries. The Interior Ministry used to have Narcotics Division, States and Frontier Regions and even Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas under it but now they too are separate ministries. For pure political purposes, the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development has been created out of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture; ministries of Minorities and Zakat and Usher from the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The phenomenal increase in the number of federal ministries and divisions started during Musharraf’s tenure but instead of being checked, the Federal Secretariat further swelled in the present tenure. Dr Ishrat Hussain-led federal body, created by Musharraf to rationalise the size of the Federal Secretariat, had recommended to cut down the size of the federal ministries to just 17 but the ousted dictator simply ignored those recommendations. The present regime too relies on additional taxes, both direct and indirect, including the lately imposed Carbon tax on petroleum products, instead of cutting its own expenditure and checking wastage of money by the rulers and the bureaucracy. --
