Fall of Punjab

Province of Punjab, which was once perceived as a pioneer and a leader in governance, has hit the rock bottom when it comes to transparency and better service delivery. Corruption and bad governance reign supreme across the length and breadth of the province.

During the era of Shehbaz Sharif as the provincial chief minister, other provinces copied the various governance interventions introduced by Punjab. Even the era of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as the Punjab CM is considered ideal for its governance and administration.

However, now things have come to such a pass that the province of Sindh, which was once cited as a classic example of bad governance, is regarded better than Punjab in terms of governance. Sindh has salvaged its image due to the leadership of its Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.

What has been the cause of this nosedive is not a secret now.  It is said that the fish rots from its head and the same goes for the province.

The least that could be said about Punjab’s incumbent Chief Minister Usman Buzdar is that he could not maintain the pace of his predecessors.  Rampant transfer and postings, indecisiveness and corruption caused insecurity and inefficiency in bureaucracy.

And now the progress of the province has come to a grinding halt. Officers are not taking initiatives and there is no push to them from the CM office to deliver. Many believe that the epicenter of inefficiency in the province lies nowhere else than the top political office of the province.

However, it is not just inefficiency that plagues Punjab.

Startling stories of corruption started circulating in the middle of 2019 when some of the blue-eyed officers started playing pivotal roles in transfers and postings on important posts like that of secretaries, commissioners and deputy commissioners.

There were open charges from the opposition that hefty bribes were taken from officers, especially junior ones, for posting them as commissioners and the deputy commissioners.

Some of the officers, who could not afford hard cash, found their sponsors among property tycoons who paid the bribes for the civil servants in exchange of assurances that these officers will in turn give their stamps of approval to their otherwise illegal housing colonies.

Knowledgeable sources quote the examples of Chakwal and Bahawalnagar districts in this regard. Some of the officers indulged so massively in corruption that their loot became talk of the town.

Grapevine has it that these postings were purely transactional in nature, generally for a period of six months, beyond which the DCs were required to pay the installment for the next six months.

The bribe-based postings had a very adverse effect on the lives of the people. The bribe given to get a desired posting or seek extension in its tenure had a trickle-down effect.

The assistant commissioners, tehsildars and patwaris had to foot the bill of the posting or extension of a DC’s tenure. The burden was passed on to the poor farmer who came to the revenue officials for demarcation or  partition of their lands;  to get a copy of the Fard Malkiyat from the Arazi record centres; to get the mutations done or to get the revenue record or girdawari corrected.

There are stories of a DC of a central Punjab district seeking Rs10 million for one case of allotment of land.  Quantum of corruption can be gauged from the fact that tens of dozens of such cases come before the DC in a year.

The rampant stories of corruption and inefficiency started echoing in the Prime Minister Secretariat as well. The result was change of top bureaucrat in Punjab.

Maj (retd) Azam Suleman replaced Yousaf Naseem Khokhar as Punjab chief secretary with strict instruction from the premier to improve governance in the province.

Suleman, known as a strict officer, took several initiatives and tried to curtail the writ of sprawling CM secretariat which annoyed the political boss of the province. The result was once again the change of chief secretary.

The whispers in the corridors became louder and louder, which led the otherwise very docile and ineffectual Jawad Rafique Malik Punjab’s former chief secretary to assert.

He transferred the DCs of Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Sahiwal and other districts whose corruption had evolved to gigantic proportions.  Principal Secretary to CM Tahir Khurshid known in bureaucratic and political circles as TK for his massive influence over the CM was also transferred.

However, his transfer cost Jawad Rafique Malik his posting. Buzdar insisted on his posting and the prime minister yielded to his demand. The kleptocratic alliance between the political masters and bureaucrats has devoured the state resources mercilessly.

State land worth trillions of rupees has been illegally allotted by such officers after fattening their pockets. The levies and taxes, which could fund development projects, were illegally waived in return of personal gains.

Punjab incumbent Chief Secretary Kamran Afzal – who belongs to landed gentry – is known for his honesty. After taking over the position, he made some changes in the administrative set-up.

He is trying hard to improve the governance system which has rotten from the core and made the inefficient bureaucrats work. However, these changes have not produced the desired results.  He could not cut the tentacles of TK’s influence which still reign supreme in the Chief Minister’s secretariat.

He could not remove some of the secretaries, commissioners and the deputy commissioners who have a shady past and about whom stories of mammoth corruption keep appearing every now and then.

TK, who comes from a very humble background, stays put because he has got the support of the political top gun.  He has reportedly bought land worth hundreds of millions of rupees and established a housing colony and is minting millions of rupees by selling plots.

The amenities at his housing colony were constructed with public funds. Some other DCs with bad reputations are continuing apparently with the support of the political bosses. Some of the secretaries and the commissioners also continue to work despite their shady reputation.

Political compulsions are also a hurdle for the new chief secretary. The allies of the ruling party rule the roost in four districts. Every time there is a political crisis or some important legislation is to be passed, this political coterie extracts its pound of flesh.

Four districts and some departments are considered no-go-area for the government. The officers of these districts and the departments play to the tune of this group. Merit and fair play are the prime casualties of this realpolitik.

In the police department,  a retired relative of the influential figure of the province used to call the shots and managed transfers and postings of police officers including station house officers (SHOs) to regional police officers (RPOs).

This had a very baleful impact on the criminal justice system in the province. The officers who won their postings after greasing the palm of the retired uncle, would extract money from the poor.

Registration of the first information reports (FIRs) was impossible without giving bribes between Rs25,000 to Rs50,000. Fair investigation became a rarity.

Innocent persons were implicated in the false cases. They were declared innocent only after payment of hefty bribes.  Those who could not, languished behind the bars. Postings in the other departments like education, health and prisons were also made only after taking bribes.

Widespread corruption in Punjab has, however, not destroyed the fabric of good governance in the province alone. Some analysts hold the ongoing state of affairs in Punjab responsible for Pakistan sliding down from 117th position on corruption perception index in 2018 to 124th position.

This is too high a cost for propping up an incompetent puppet. The tolerance of wide-spread gross incompetence in Punjab by the federal government is raising many questions and ruffling many strategic feathers. Punjab is proving the proverbial Achilles heel for the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The writer is an analyst, anchor and the bureau chief at Bol News in Lahore