Bureaucracy of Pakistan

It comes from the French word Bureau. Bureau meaning a desk so, it means desk Government. It is
Government by bureaus and has a French pronominal. Afterward it transfer to Germany, where the
social Scientist Max Weber circularize or spread it. The bureaucracy is a powerful group. The
process of government is influence by it. Bureaucracy is a form of organization characterized by
division of labour with a clearly defined hierarchy complete rules and regulations and formal
relationships. An administrative or social system that relies on a set of rules and procedures,
separation of functions and a hierarchical structure in carrying out control, controls over an
organization, government or social system. Bureaucracy is essentially an organisation, with
definite rules, regulations, powers & functions. The bureaucracy is not limited to the Federal
bureaucracy. Private businesses and schools often consist of a bureaucracy as well. Also, the
Federal bureaucracy is not limited to the Executive Branch, but rather each branch of the
government has its own bureaucracy.
 
Bureaucracy in Pakistan

Bureaucracy comprises Central Superior Services and the Provincial Civil Services. The CSS
Examinations are open to both male and female. The exams are conducted and supervised by the
Federal Public Service Commission. Bureaucracy in Pakistan is the successor. At the time of
division of bureaucracy Pakistan was in extreme poor position.

Characteristics of bureaucracy in Pakistan

It is like a pyramid with the top bureaucrat having the most power. Every individual has a specific,
specialized role. Performance is judged by the quality of job performed Mixture of military and
civilian officers. It’s politically neutral. Everyone has their own set of goals only the best qualified
people get hired and promoted; not to family members or friends.

Bureaucracy of Pakistan as agent

The bureaucracy worked as a change agent in the following fields.
• Education.
• Health and Sanitation.
• Population Control.
• Communication.
• Agriculture.
• Betterment of workers and Laborers.
• Rights of women etc.
The consequences of the Bhutto reforms dysfunctionality and inertia in rules: The reforms of 1973
interestingly did not alter the processes and procedures of bureaucratic conduct as they remained
overly elaborate, non-transparent, and discretionary
The discretionary nature of these rules heightened the principal-agent problem in the context of the
fragmentation of the state structure. This is on account of two reasons. First, the declining internal
cohesion and fragmentation of the bureaucracy allowed individual agents greater 'autonomy' to use
discretionary powers even if they came at the expense of stated policy.

Second, archaic performance measurement procedures, which employed little use of modern
technology and lacked objective criteria of 'outcome monitoring', made it harder for principals to
obtain 'verifiable' information on bureaucratic performance [World Bank, op. Cit., Pakistan
(2001)]. These two reasons combined to reduce the efficacy with which politicians could hold
individual bureaucrats accountable and this created room for individual or sectional rent-seeking
within the bureaucracy.

Changes in the political structure: There were two important breaks in the 1970s with regard to the
development of the political structure that had an important impact on the 'developmental efficacy'
of the bureaucracy. First, is the electoral success of mass based 'populist' parties in Pakistan in the
1970 elections. This development affected the structure of the bureaucracy in two ways.

First, populism resulted in the bureaucracy becoming an employment agency through which
patronage was dispensed to party-based cadres. Second, Bhutto's populism resulted in expanding
the role of the state quite rapidly, as a result of which the total expenditure to GDP ratio increased
from 6.6 percent in 1969-70 to 14 percent in 1979-80. As mentioned above both these effects
resulted in the politicization of the bureaucracy and reduced its internal cohesiveness and
insularity.

The second development was the fragmentation of the political structures that was a result of Zia's
interventions in the political and electoral spheres that aimed to neutralize the presence of
organised political parties within the political structure.

This was achieved through the establishment of Martial Law that dissolved the elected provincial
and federal tiers in 1977 and through the promulgation of the Local Government Ordinances in
1979, which ensured that representation became confined to the local level. The representative
principle was further weakened at the local level because of interventions against political parties.
The effect of the above developments was the capture of the local level by politically mobilized
localized clientelist elements now gained at the expense of organised political parties.

Zia's decision to exclude political parties from the federal and provincial elections of 1985, which
were held on a non-party basis, helped to elevate these local clientelist elements to the higher tiers
of the state and these networks ended up capturing significant electoral and political space at the
provincial and federal levels.

As a result, the 1985 higher tier assemblies emerged as politically fragmented patronage structures.
As Wilder (1999) states: "This tendency towards the localisation and personalisation of politics
was not muted after the revival of party-based Federal and Provincial Assemblies in 1988 because
party organisations had been considerably weakened by measures taken against them during the
Zia period".

The space created by this weakening of parties was filled by the formation of mobile and fluid
local political factions that "linked up with higher political factions and ultimately with parties at
the provincial and national levels". Personalisation of politics, weakening of party organisations,
and the fluidity and mobility of local vote blocs successfully fragmented the political structure.

The emergence of decentralized clientelist political collectivities coupled with the repeated use of
the President's powers, given by the 8th Constitutional Amendment, to dissolve assemblies
shortened the time horizons of Pakistan's political leadership and individual politicians, which
further entrenched clientelist policy objectives at the expense of developmental goals. The effect of
broader socio-economic changes on bureaucratic conduct: Another important factor that has eroded
the internal cohesion of the bureaucracy is the changing social profile of the bureaucrats. An
important mechanism of internal cohesion within the CSP cadre was that a large number of CSPs
belonged to either the landed elite or urban professional groups, received education at the same
schools and colleges and generally had a shared socio-economic background.

Approximately 70 percent of those who joined the civil service as belonging to the middle class
and another 25 percent as belonging to upper landed classes. An important consequence of
urbanization, the spread of education and the growth of political populism during the late sixties
and seventies was that this socio-economic profile underwent significant change. Analysis of
socio-economic backgrounds of those who joined civil service during 1987-97 suggests that there
has been a major change in the profiles of civil servants. His survey shows that 88 percent of those
joining service belonged to the middle class, while only 4 percent to upper landed families.
Furthermore, he shows that education has played an important role in access to civil service. This
is supported by the evidence that the educational qualification of the average entrant to the civil
service has increased. During 1950-60 only 60 percent of new entrants had an MA/MSc, whereas
during the period 1987-97 over 75 percent had an MA/MSc. These changes had eroded the class
and group basis of internal cohesion as entrants to the civil service are likely to come from diverse
backgrounds and schooling systems, which reduces the cohesion of the bureaucracy and makes it
more fragmented.

The 'developmental efficacy' of the Pakistani bureaucracy has also been adversely affected by the
erosion of the economic and financial incentives of bureaucrats. Recent evidence shows that an
important disincentive in the current bureaucratic structure is the low salary structure. Pakistan
(2001) finds that the present compensation packages for all employees are extremely low. The
inadequacy of the current pay structure can be assessed by benchmarking the pay package for civil
servants against pay packages received by private sector agents with the same experience profile.

World Bank (1998) makes such a comparison at the level of Senior Federal Secretary, with the
comparison category being the Managing Director (MD) of a domestic corporation. They find that
after monetising all the benefits and adjusting for job security, the pay package of a senior federal
secretary is half of what is earned by an MD in a domestic corporation. Pakistan (2001) reaffirms
this finding and in addition points out that the "problem of low wages is further exacerbated by
limited availability of official accommodation and other facilities. Many officers end up paying
almost their entire salary for house rent". The low salary structure, in turn, leads to low morale,
poor performance and sets incentives for heightened corruption. There could also be second-order
effects of low pays, which have not been empirically measured for Pakistan, such as, non-corrupt
individuals opting out of the civil service because of the dysfunctionality of the salary structure.

Changes in the bureaucratic structure and its impact: Institutional reforms instituted by Bhutto,
socio-economic changes, and the changing nature of the political structure have had a number of
adverse consequences for the 'developmental efficacy' of Pakistan's bureaucracy. First, the
fragmentation of the political structure and the entrenchment of clientelist coalitions has created a
disjuncture between the existing objectives of Pakistan's state managers and the broader
requirements of developmental policy that focuses at a minimum on the efficient provision of
public and merit goods [Keefer, et al. (2003)].

During the eighties this has resulted in the civil service being used as a patronage mechanism for
the employment of clients of various political groups, with the late eighties to mid-nineties
witnessing a very fast growth in the size of the provincial civil service. More importantly, the use
of the civil service as an employment bureau has created a dysfunctional mix of personnel within
the civil service, with approximately 71 percent of the civil service personnel being concentrated in
the BPS 1-7 category (accountants, clerical staff). Against this, the proportion of the officer cadre
BPS 16-22 is extremely small at 9.8 percent. More importantly, the declining insularity of the civil
service and the fragmentation of the political structure have led to the politicisation of the
bureaucracy. World Bank (1998) finds that examples of politicisation include: excessively frequent
contact of politicians with the local staff by undermining the hierarchical structures of decision-
making; the development of patron/client relationships under which public servants owe their
loyalty to particular politicians rather than to their hierarchy in the public service; and the induction
of unqualified mid-career appointments through the use of the lateral entry system.
This tendency has assumed a new dimension since the military coup of 1999. A much larger
contingent of retired and serving military personnel have been inducted in the bureaucracy during
this period than at any other time in the past.
Between October 1999 and September 2003, a total of 1027 military personnel were employed in
the civil service and semi-autonomous state corporations. Of these 276 were appointed in senior
positions (Grades 20-22). This 'militarization' of the bureaucracy has not only further intensified
the issue the fragmentation of the bureaucracy but has also significantly affected the criterion of
merit-based recruitment.

The authority of the bureaucracy has also been weakened through the use of provisions allowing
horizontal and vertical movement of bureaucrats across cadres. This became an important
mechanism for shedding bureaucrats who refused to play ball and was used by all political
managers of the state since the 1970s.
The most important adverse consequence of politicisation has been that the stability in the
framework of rules and regulations has been undermined. For example, most decisions related to
tax policy are taken by bureaucrats through SROs by passing parliament [Pakistan (2001)]. In
many departments there is a tendency to change the rules for eligibility of promotion a few months
before the meeting of the promotion board in order to favor political clients. The power to relax
rules has been widely used to legitimize decentralized patronage by individual members of the
executive and these powers in many cases do not require the prior approval of even the Cabinet
[World Bank (1998)].

The politicisation of the bureaucracy has resulted in eroding the rule-based nature of the Pakistani
bureaucracy, which has lowered the cost of bureaucrats being captured by clientelist politicians,
increased the probability of collusion between bureaucrats and fragmented clientelist networks and
has undermined formal mechanisms of merit based recruitment and accountability.

The combination of a fragmented clientelist polity and a fragmented state structure has shortened
the time horizons of state officials. The ability of officials to retain key posts has come to be based
on political influence and not on an objective set of institutional rules.
Similarly, appointments and promotions are no longer based on well specified 'rules' but on the
ability of individual officials to sustain political protection. It is, therefore, rational for officials to
accommodate 'clientelist patrons' offering the highest short-term payoffs, even is this means
undermining 'rules', policy objectives and social welfare.

AN APPRAISAL OF RECENT EFFORTS AT BUREAUCRATIC REFORM: THE

MUSHARRAF REGIME AND AFTER:

Since the military coup of 1999, bureaucratic reform has come on the agenda more explicitly. A
number of committees were formed within the government for this purpose. Other governmental
initiatives, specifically the Devolution Plan, also had far reaching implications on bureaucratic
structure. Conceptually, these reforms can be categorized as addressing three elements given
below.

Reforms to enhance bureaucratic monitoring and accountability: The Musharraf regime's

Devolution of Power Plan (2000) operationalized through local government ordinances (2001) in
all four provinces is a far reaching reform that has the explicit objective of enhancing bureaucratic
accountability at the district level.

First, as a result of this plan provincial line departments that were only indirectly accountable to
the provincial political tier have been placed under the authority of elected Nazism at the district
level. As Cheema and Mohamed (2003) show that "this has significantly empowered the local-
level elected tier, at least on paper, and created a new form of accountability for the provincial line
department".

Second, the concentration of power in the hands of the old Deputy Commissioner (DC) has been
diluted by stripping the new District Co-ordination Officer's (DCO) office of the executive
magistracy, revenue and law and order functions. The new DCO's office on paper "only retains the
administrative and co-ordination functions associated with the old DCs office" [Cheema and
Mohamed (2003)]. Furthermore, the DCO-the head of the district under the current system-reports
directly to the elected nazim rather than to the provincial secretaries. Bureaucratic accountability is
expected to increase in the current system for two reasons.

First, local level bureaucrats report directly to local level elected politicians, which is expected to
reduce monitoring and information costs. Second, electoral accountability is expected to increase
at the district level because the new system has brought government closer to the people in "an
electoral sense with the population per elected representative being much smaller at the district and
union level than at the level of the higher tiers of the state" [Cheema and Mohmand (2003)].

In short, devolution is expected to increase politicians' accountability vis-à-vis the electorate,

which, in turn, is expected to increase local politicians' incentives to both adhere to development
objectives and to monitor bureaucratic performance. Equally importantly by lowering the
politicians' costs of monitoring the provincial bureaucracy devolution is expected to increase the
ability of politicians to hold the provincial bureaucracy accountable. However, a number of social,
political and systemic impediments, discussed below, continue to mute the politicians' ability to
hold the bureaucracy accountable. Furthermore, these impediments also appear to mute district
politicians' electoral accountability, which, in turn, reduces their incentives to both adhere to
development objectives and to hold the bureaucrats accountable if they diverge from these goals.
First, it appears that the military's choice of holding non-party and indirect elections at the local
level [for details and reasons see Cheema and Mohmand (2003)] appears to have reproduced old
clientelist hierarchies within the district polity. For example, Manning, et al. (2003) find the 30
percent of district nazims in the Punjab were former MNAs or MPAs, and approximately 90
percent belonged to established political families. This suggests that the a priori expectation that
politicians' electoral accountability will be enhanced because of devolution is by no means self-
evident. In turn, this implies that old clientelist objectives may continue to dominate politics in
many districts, which will only reinforce the reproduction of many of the old anti-poor distortions
in public service delivery.

Second, it appears that the local level politicians' ability to hold the provincial bureaucrat
accountable is muted by the provincial secretariats retention of important powers that constrain the
autonomous functioning of the district government vis-à-vis the provincial line bureaucracy. Fr
example, under the current system most "DCOs and EDOs continue to be a part of the federal and
provincial cadres and all decisions regarding promotions and transfers are taken by their provincial
secretariats".

The retention of these powers by the provincial bureaucracy appears to be creating significant
obstacles for district politicians in their attempt to hold the provincial bureaucracy accountable.
Furthermore, retention of personnel functions by the provincial secretariats, in addition to muting
the district nazims ability to sanction individual bureaucrats, mutes their de jure power to
determine the employment level of bureaucrats at the aggregate budgetary level. Lastly, in spite of
devolution the rules, procedures and mechanisms of bureaucratic accountability continue from the
past.

For example, the key formal procedure of internal accountability remains the ACR (with all its
contingent problems discussed earlier) and the current system remains devoid of mechanisms to
measure output based bureaucratic performance. This suggests that it is unclear whether the costs
of obtaining verifiable information on bureaucratic performance has been lowered for politicians.

'Right-sizing': reforms to improve the bureaucratic structure: Another area of reform that has been
floated is that of right-sizing of the bureaucracy so that problems of over-staffing (and the
consequent practice of using the government as an employment exchange) and the lopsided
structure of the bureaucracy (which is regarded as too bottom heavy) is corrected. The Report of
the Committee on Restructuring and Right-sizing of the Federal Ministries and Divisions
[henceforth Pakistan (2001)] is the newest and most comprehensive document which sets out the
parameters for this particular reform effort. The Report is based on asking 30 of the 34 federal
government division to formulate their own mission statements on the basis of which they were
asked to recommend right-sizing and restructuring in their respective ministries. It is not clear what
the status of implementation of this Report has been to date. Nonetheless, there are a number of
conceptual problems with it.
First, the report deals only with the Federal Government whereas seventy percent of the
employment is generated by the provincial governments, with critical service delivery functions at
that level and below. Without an adequate plan or proposal for restructuring/right-sizing at that
level, any exercise for right-sizing will be incomplete.
Second, without the Federal government itself explicitly defining is own objectives, the exercise of
seeking a mission statement from individual ministries is violate of criterion (a) of the model in
Section 1. Some conception of the overall structure with respect the three tiers of the government is
also required if "staffing changes are to be focused at the appropriate locations". [Khan (2001), p.
20].

Third, Pakistan (2001) has emphasised on down-sizing of lower level staff to correct the
lopsidedness in the structure of the bureaucracy. The report recommends cutting down
approximately 40,000 out of 135,000 posts in grades 16 and below. This may be a necessary
condition to improve the balance of the civil service as well as send the signal that the bureaucracy
is not an employment exchange.

However, it is not a sufficient condition. For improvements in governance and service delivery, it
is equally important that capacity constraints, in terms of requisite sills and training, in the upper
echelons of the bureaucracy (Grades 21-22) are also addressed. This may entail that sufficient
pruning of higher level bureaucracy is also undertaken.

Fourth, the procedure for right-sizing adopted in practice over the last decade and endorsed by
Pakistan (2001) concentrates on voluntary golden handshakes. This has created adverse selection
problems as those who are more competent and can command a high premium for their skills in the
private sector tend to opt for the golden handshake. The less competent ones continue with the
security of a government job.

Last, but not the least, is the issue of political resistance to right/down-sizing. For the last decade,
successive governments have been aware of the uneven structure of the bureaucracy and the
consequent need for reducing its strength, particularly at the lower echelons.

However, evidence suggests that not much has been accomplished so far. Constraints in down-
sizing for political governments is understandable, especially in a country with a long tradition of
preference for state employment. But the fact that the military government itself did not even
demonstrate the requisite intent of down-sizing the provincial governments goes to show that even
a praetorian government was not immune to the risk of the political backlash-in this case on its
legitimacy rather than the electoral calculus that afflicts politicians-that it may have encountered.

This paper has attempted to contextualize the decline in bureaucratic conduct within the broader
parameters of the historical legacy of colonial inheritance as well as socio-political changes that
have occurred, especially in the last three decades.
While the bureaucracy was a coherent institution in the pre-1970 period, its elitist character and its
lack of accountability meant that its remit was far beyond its core function-i.e. that of an
intermediary between politicians and the electorate. Bhutto's reforms broke the steel frame of the
bureaucracy. The structural changes brought about in the laws governing the civil service as well
as changes in the society and polity continue to prevail in today's Pakistan.

SOME OF THE KEY CHANGES IN THIS RESPECT NEED TO BE REITERATED

Declining Insulation of the Bureaucracy. The declining internal cohesion of Pakistan's

bureaucracy, an outcome of the breakdown of informal social, class and educational networks that
had controlled the bureaucracy prior to the seventies reforms, eroded the insulation of Pakistan's
bureaucratic structure.

Fragmentation of the Bureaucracy. The imperative of political control set incentives for the
creation of fragmented agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and that this process took root after
the 1973 reforms.

Distortions Created by Dysfunctional and Inert Rules. The persistence of dysfunctional rules made
it difficult for principals to obtain 'verifiable' information on bureaucratic performance and this
heightened the principal-agent problem within the Pakistani bureaucracy.

Erosion of Salaries. While there has been an increase in the size of the state since the seventies this
has been matched by erosion in the real salary benefits for both higher and lower level bureaucrats.

Rise of Politically Fragmented Clientelism. Finally, the Zia period resulted in the proliferation and
entrenchment of fragmented clientelist networks that came to dominate both political parties and
the wider political process.

The consequences of the 1973 reforms for bureaucratic development can be analyzed through the
lens of the logical model given in Section 1. It is clear that since the 1970s, condition (c) of the
model that requires efficient bureaucratic monitoring and accountability has not been met. First,
declining salaries in real terms ensured that bureaucratic incentives were no longer 'incentive
compatible'. Second, dysfunctional and inert 'rules' raised the cost of acquiring 'verifiable'
information regarding bureaucratic performance and outcomes. In turn, opaqueness of information
combined with an inefficient judicial system raised the cost of sanctioning ill performing
bureaucrats. This process was reinforced by collusive arrangements between powerful political
patrons and bureaucrats.
The rising dominance of political clientelism combined with new 'rules' defined by Bhutto's
reforms reduced the degree of insulation of the bureaucracy, which violated condition (d) of the
logical model. Finally, the efficacy of the political process in establishing operational objectives
consistent with a coherent agenda had declined because of the proliferation of clientelism, which
resulted in powerful individual 'political patrons' following goals that created redistributive
benefits for clients, such as granting state employment, rather than pursuing development public
goods.

This meant that condition (b) of the model was also being violated. Therefore, it is not surprising
that the efficacy of Pakistan's bureaucratic structure has been declining since the seventies given
that these three essential conditions for the efficient functioning of the bureaucratic structure were
not being met due to changes in 'rules' brought about by Bhutto's reforms and due to changes in
Pakistan's political structure. All these factors have meant that as the structure and conduct of
bureaucracy stands now, rather than being an agent for change, the bureaucracy can be reasonably
categorized as an impediment to pro-poor change. There are important lessons to be learnt from the
Pakistan's chequered political history. An over-powering bureaucracy with no accountability-as in
the pre-1970 period-is incompatible with the existent level of political mobilization that prevails in
the country. It is also not desirable to the extent that its complete disregard of and animosity for
representative politics means that is conduct will always lack ownership and legitimacy.

The Bhutto reforms had the effect of throwing the baby out with the bath water. A rules-based
bureaucracy with a certain degree of security of tenure is thus required, but one which is
appropriately accountable for its conduct to a sovereign parliament and impartial judiciary.
Although the elitism of the past is no longer possible, it is important that a well-knit structure is
created for the bureaucracy to insulate it from political clientelism that it is confronted with
presently.

It is important to recall that in the larger scheme of things-specifically for pro-poor change-the
bureaucracy is only a transmission chain. Even if efforts in creating a competent and rules-based
efficient bureaucracy are successful (either through design or a magic wand) but the objectives and
goals of the state remain anti-poor, it can still create an inferior outcome so far as pro-poor change
is concerned as an efficient anti-poor bureaucracy will execute such policies more efficiently. Thus
any form of bureaucratic reform will have to be a part of a pro-poor political and economic reform
in Pakistan.