Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the government is firmly committed to undertake structural reforms of bureaucracy to make it efficient and responsive to the needs of time.
He was chairing a meeting of Task Force on Civil Service Reforms here on Friday.
The Prime Minister regretted that bureaucracy was heavily politicized during the past ten years which resulted in its inefficiency.
He said bureaucracy will be depoliticized and insulated from all kinds of political pressures.
The Prime Minister said the existing government system cannot compete with private sector where merit determines the positions and seniority. He said no system can sustain or deliver if accountability and merit is missing. “We need to restructure and reform our bureaucracy to make it innovative,” he said.
Imran Khan stressed there is dire need to promote professionalism in every sphere. “We are committed to protecting integrity and security of tenure of bureaucrats so that they could devote their energies towards translating political vision into reality. We have to attract best minds to serve the country.”
Imran Khan said talent is abundant in the country. Only the existing system does not allow talent to emerge.
The Prime Minister said political class also needs to be trained to deal with the changing times.
The Prime Minister stressed for checking the wastage of resources. “We are also bringing a model local government system wherein local representatives will be fully empowered to carry out public welfare work.” Separately, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday directed authorities concerned to track down those named in the 2016 Panama Papers.
According to sources in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, more than 250 people named in the Panama Papers have availed the tax amnesty and most of the companies named in the leak have shifted to China.
Sources further said, 175 people named in the leak could not be located while information regarding 78 was incomplete for which help from agencies has been sought.
A trove of 11.5 million digital records from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed how many of the world’s wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets. The data were leaked to a German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and reports appeared in major media from April 3, 2016.
Published in Daily Times, February 9th 2019.
