Civil servants may continue to serve as secretaries

Express Tribune

12-07-2025

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chairs a review meeting on Hajj arrangements for the upcoming year in Islamabad on Saturday, June 21, 2025. Photo courtesy: Radio Pakistan
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A week after advertising to hire federal secretaries of economic ministries from the private sector, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday constituted a committee to further examine the induction of sectoral experts into more suitable tiers of the civil service.
The ministerial committee includes Climate Change Minister Dr Musaddiq Malik, Power Minister Sardar Awais Laghari, Commerce Secretary Jawad Paul and FBR Chairman Rashid Langrial. It has been tasked with thoroughly deliberating the proposal.
The committee's findings will also be aligned with the work of two other committees led by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal.
The move comes just six days after the government published a media advertisement seeking private sector professionals for top civil service roles, which sparked concern among some federal ministers and bureaucrats about the potential impact on governance and institutional integrity.
Prime Minister Shehbaz directed the formation of a committee to finalise actionable proposals for the restructuring of other ministries and institutions, considering the reforms in the energy ministry, according to a statement issued by the PM's office.
"The committee will also focus on recruiting the best workforce, aligning ministries with modern systems, and improving governance through reforms," stated the PM's office.
The sources said that during the meeting on power sector issues some of the participants raised serious concerns about the impact of the decision on hiring of principal accounting officers and other technical experts from the open market.
There was a strong view in the meeting that the office of the federal secretary cannot be replaced with private persons having limited or no accountability of their decisions. One of the arguments was that foreign investment has not been hampered by secretaries, rather the reasons were different. Lack of sanctity of the contracts is said to be one of such reasons discouraging foreign investment.
The participants didn't have an issue with the induction of people against the higher grade positions but there were concerns about the level of entry whether they should be made federal secretaries or the inductions should be from grade 20 or 21, said the sources.
Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Establishment Ahad Khan Cheema said that there was no change in the earlier decision, which was to establish a pool of capable and experienced people.
The government has issued advertisements over the weekend to hire seven "dynamic" private sector individuals for the posts of federal secretaries.
However, the advertisement did not name the divisions, the qualification criteria and job descriptions. It has invited applications from "dynamic and experienced professionals for the role of Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs), Technical Advisers, Head of Organizations in key economic areas", states the advert. A two weeks' deadline is given for submission of the applications.
The advertisement, posted at the Establishment Division website, did not name the divisions, qualification criteria and the job descriptions. However, it suggested that the government is set to hire seven federal secretaries from the private sector to run the economy-related ministries.
These are the Finance Division, Petroleum Division, Power Division, Planning Division, Industries and Production Division, National Food Security Division and Vocational Education and Training. These divisions are currently headed by officers from the all-powerful Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS).
One federal minister objected that his secretary's position is advertised without first consulting him.
Pakistan's economic ministries are mostly run by the officers from the PAS and there has been criticism that many of them do not have the requisite experience to understand the complexity of the economic matters.
The prime minister said that transformation of the outdated system into a modern, digital, and effective governance model was among the government's priorities, as economic development and prosperity were impossible without modernizing the system to meet contemporary demands.
The prime minister directed to introduce reforms to enhance the performance of ministries and hire the services of experts in every sector. The prime minister said that the country could not achieve progress with the system that has been in place for seven decades.
The meeting participants argued that instead of bringing in federal secretaries the capacity should be built through technical induction on contract basis or in middle tier lateral entry in civil service.
The direct induction as principal accounting officer is largely untested with no exposure of public sector management and political and parliamentary oversights barring the induction of secretary information technology.
According to some bureaucrats, top private sector professionals in this high risk environment will not join on present management pay scales and special pay scales. The existing stuff on the management pay scale is not of high quality, they argued.
Young officers from the provinces are also reluctant to work in the federal government due to better service structure in the provinces.
The federal government had a couple of years back given 140% executive allowance to the bureaucrats on the grounds that the officers from provinces were not ready to work in the centre due to better pay packages being offered by the federating units.