‘Form National Council of Ministers’: World Bank Tells Pakistan to Improve Public Sector Health – News18

Pakistan was told to form a national council of ministers by the World Bank, news agency the Dawn reported. It said that the council should comprise key federal and provincial representatives who can help revive the nation’s federal and provincial institutions, policies and accountability systems which have been performing poorly.

The document pointed out that officials were rewarded for adherence to rules but not for good operational performance. It also said that performance reviews of officials are rare. The successive governments did not promote officials on the basis of qualifications and performance but on the basis of seniority and informal networks.

The World Bank also urged the government to improve the recruitment process to the public sector and performance management processes. It said that reforms are being impeded due to vested interests of senior bureaucrats who are busy in maintaining the status quo, highlighting that a “strong political leadership will be required to change incentive structures within the public service through the introduction of a Performance Management System (PMS) across the public sector”.

The policy document also advised the government to take “imme­diate measures” to improve coordination between central and provincial governments.

“A National Council of Ministers, consisting of the federal and provincial ministers working under the aegis of the council for Common Interests (CCI) should formulate and monitor the implementation of key national policies, including in education, health, food security and agriculture, water and sanitation, and transport,’ the World Bank said.

The global lender highlighted that Pakistan’s key governance issues are ‘incomplete devolution’ and institutional weaknesses and said much can not be hoped for from a technocratic government. “While technocratic interventions are unlikely to transform Pakistan’s institutional environment in the short term, the current contextual factors — deteriorating economic conditions, demographic change and social media — may present some windows of opportunity for positive change, the World Bank said in its policy advice.

The policy advice pointed out that Islamabad failed to implement devolution initiated through the 18th Amendment and said the successive governments took measures which led to overlaps in service delivery, increasing fiscal costs and blurring accountabilities.

It further suggested that measures should be taken to strengthen institutions and support implementation. Those measures should be able to thwart elite capture of institutions and build the government’s capacity to deliver critical reforms and investments.

The global lender said that it hopes that these policies will help build confidence in the nation’s private sector and improve the quality of public services while addressing policy instability and corruption.