Viable economic growth and the colonial bureaucracy cannot go together as they are opposed to each other. Now is the high time to take a drastic decision about what is the need of the country, now we will have to choose one out of a thriving economy or a burgeoning bureaucracy.
The bureaucracy is not friendly to the economy in Pakistan, rather It is a barrier to economic progress. There is a complex and diabolical chain of regulations and the investors are the mercy of the bureaucracy. If the investors want to invest in a middle-grade unit, first of all they have to deal with the dozens of rules and regulations and have to get many no objection certificates from several government functionaries, which are controlled by the bureaucrats.
The government departments provide all the facilities to the investors in the whole world but here in Pakistan the bureaucracy creates obstacles in the way of investment to take personal benefits from the business community by using traditional delaying tactics which is known as red tapism.
The royal bureaucrats have put in place such a complex system that no investors can move even a step forward without their approval. It is very unfortunate that even after 80 years of independence, the bureaucracy is still following the legacy of British rulers and it behaves like that they might be the owners of East India Company instead of public servants. The structure of bureaucracy is neo-feudalistic, and it has unlimited powers, boundless resources and without any accountability.
Recently a former Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan Ali Awaz Al-Asiri, mentioned in his column that one significant reason for severe scarcity in investment in Pakistan is unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and regulatory demands, which actually demoralize investors and become obstacles not only to the initiation of new projects but also to the completion of existing ones.
Now it is the requirement of the time to cut the feather of bureaucracy forever. It is the point of ponder that the decision-makers don’t understand what a foreign ambassador comprehended. Why can’t we start a one-window operation for investors? Surely, bureaucratic hurdles would obstruct this path as well.
The structure of the bureaucratic system is obsolete. It might have worked in the era of slavery, but a free state cannot endure it. There’s no skill, no expertise in the bureaucrats. The bureaucracy has experience in only one aspect, and that is getting more and more perks at the cost of national exchequer. If the US president resides in a house of 152 kanals, then the commissioner of Sargodha resides in a house of 104 kanals too.
Bureaucracy is the hole in our national economy that doesn’t let the national treasury fill up. According to the report of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, the average salary of our bureaucrats is 12% higher than that of the United Nations staff. Only in Islamabad, the area of bureaucratic residences is 864 acres, and they are constructed in pieces of 20, 30, 40, and 50 acres, meaning these land parcels are more suitable for commercial use.