Civilian bureaucracy being militarised in Pak

Islamabad, Feb 13: Pakistan's civilian bureaucracy is experiencing its 'militarisation' in a unique fashion with retired generals becoming the virtual masters of their fate, a local media report said today.

For the first time in the history of the country's civil services, almost every key aspect of the bureaucracy's service matters has gone into the hands of retired generals. From their initial appointment to early, mid-career and senior-level training, promotions and even the civil services' reform agenda is being decided by ex-servicemen.

''This is unprecedented,'' The News quoted a senior civilian bureaucrat as saying.

However, the government claims that this has happened by ''default and not by design''. Initial induction into the elite civil services groups and services is made through the Central Superior Services competition by the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), whose chairman is a retired general, Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Hamid.

Although the retired general is not the first ever FPSC chairman, this is for the first time that the FPSC has three ex-servicemen as its members. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the FPSC panel, interviewing the successful candidates of the CSS 2006 written examination, is dominated by retired generals.

The panel includes chairman FPSC Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Hamid, Lt-Gen (retd) Syed Abdul Ahad Najmi, Rear Admiral (retd) Muhammad Nashat Raffi and Saiyed Mohib Asad, who retired as a BS-22 police officer.

Except admiral Asad, none of the committee members has any experience or understanding of the country's civil services but will have the final say as to who among the CSS competitors deserves to be inducted in the civil services.

The Civil Service Academy (CSA), Lahore, is also headed by a retired Army man, Maj-Gen Sikandar Shami. He is the first ever director-general of the CSA, coming from the Army. The CSA provides the civil servants the basics of the civilian bureaucracy.

Maj-Gen Shami was previously director-general of the National Institute of Public Administration (Nipa), Lahore. Nipa is a civil service training institution that offers the mandatory for promotion course to BS-19 officers. Without doing Nipa, an officer could not be promoted to BS-20.

The Maj-Gen handled Nipa quite strictly, on military lines, which was the reason that a number of officers had declined to join Nipa, Lahore and preferred to go to Peshawar, Quetta, or Karachi.

Not only that the ex-servicemen are the master trainers in Public Administration schools in Lahore and other cities for the mid-career officers, it is also a general, Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Hasan, who is the principal of the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC), Lahore.

To become eligible for promotion to Basic scale BS-21, it is mandatory for government servants to attend either the civilian PASC or the military training institution called National Defence College (NDC). The NDC always remained under the military; however, this is for the first time that the PASC is led by a retired general.

Lt-Gen Hasan is not only the principal of the PASC, but is also the Rector of National School of Public Policy (NSPP), which was set up a few years ago to train and equip the civil servants with the right skills to enable them to effectively do their jobs. The NSPP authors had never thought that a retired general would run the institution.

Under General Hasan, a retired brigadier, Shahid Kardar, is already working as his key subordinate in the NSPP while two retired brigadiers have also been notified to further the top-level appointments of ex-servicemen in the top civilian training entity.

For senior level promotions in BS-20 and BS-21, it is the high-powered Central Selection Board (CSB) that recommends promotions.

Interestingly, the CSB is headed by a retired general as well. FPSC Chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Hamid is also the CSB's chairman.

There is yet another retired general, Maj-Gen (retd) Asif Ali Bukhari, who heads the Civil Services Reforms Unit (CSRU), which is responsible for the civil service reforms in the country.

UNI