As expected, the government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) has once again initiated a massive reshuffle drive in the federal bureaucracy and bureaucracy in the province of Punjab. Punjab has always been a massive province to manage and the Chief Minister (CM) needed to be someone well aware of the functioning of the system and holding some sort of sway over the system. The appointment of CM Usman Buzdar in the current tenure attracted a lot of criticism due to his lack of experience and lack of management up to date, which is evident in the form of changes in the bureaucratic line up again and again within the province.
After almost two years in governance, the government keeps on repeating the mistake of reshuffling top positions in the bureaucracy. This delays the process of work and creates a sense of insecurity and mistrust in the regime and also highlights their vision of hiring new personnel altogether instead of finding a means to improve the current setup. Even with a new vision for how the state should be governed and managed, all relevant stakeholders need to be involved in the process. Hiring new people again and again wastes a lot of resources and time that can be spent in understanding the system and how to incentivise people to improve their productivity and outcomes.
One of the government’s favourite requests of the masses and the politicians is that this government is given time due to their lack of experience and understanding, however, the top tier does not seem interested in pushing the same set up to improve, unconsciously reinforcing the same ideals that they once stood up against. There are several issues plaguing the system that require time and understanding for improvement. If all are going to meet with the same fate as former finance minister Asad Umer, then the criteria for testing policies will be cut short due to the impatience of the implementers themselves.
Right now the entire shift means that new people will be brought in, who will take time to familiarise themselves with the problems at hand and then once again become the part of the same reshuffling because the government no longer has the time to test new grounds. The government needs to accept where it has failed to govern because the criticisms of inaction and inefficiency are loud and clear.