Bureaucracy is administrative machinery of a country. In Pakistan being a part of civil service is thought to be one of the best things that can happen in life of a person. Most children are told in their childhood that no matter what field they choose to study they must appear in CSS exam at least once in their life. Most girls are told to go for civil services and the reason for that is told to them that it's considered to be the safest field for girls. And being a civil service officer they will have a great amount of power and authority in their hands.
Why is it that everyone wants to get associated with this institution? Why is it so overrated in our country? The only answer being the massive amount of power and money that is involved in this job. Three or four generations of certain families have been a part of the civil services. More than 90% of bureaucrats are highly corrupt people. These people have no moral values and no sense of responsibility or loyalty towards state. Surviving as a non-corrupt officer is really difficult in this institution. I mean these officers are not allowed to run their own private businesses, so how come they are able to afford such lavish cars and houses in most expensive areas of cities like Islamabad with such an average amount they get paid from government.
Bureaucracy has even played a crucial role in turning down certain governments in our country. Our ministers are frightened of these bureaucrats when it comes to issues where they might have a difference of opinion. It is often stated that military and bureaucracy are the two most important institutions that have a key role in most of the decisions in our country. My uncle has a job in WAPDA, he's one of the very very few honest officers who is trying hard to survive there. He has been transferred by different WAPDA officers, on orders from different civil officers because of the fear of their corruption getting caught by his complaint. And there are a lot of similar example.
Hence, what William Niskanen has written in his book 'Bureaucracy and Representative Governments' as mentioned in the reading 'senior bureaucrats,regardless of their image as public servants, are primarily motivated by career self-interest and thus seek an expansion of the agency in which they work and an increase in it's budget' is truly said, at least if we relate it to our bureaucracy.
6 comments:
I agree with your point of view regarding the involvement of most bureaucrats in unethical practices such as corruption. These officials are supposed to be elected solely based on their ability to perform well, however, most of them occupy positions previously occupied by their fathers despite that they clearly lack the required skills to perform the job, The current situation of Pakistan is only proof of this.
It is with no doubt that I agree how corrupt and self-centered these bureaucrats are. Generations of a family has been employed in one group or another. However, I think that the CSS exam procedure is a fair one. One cannot be appointed as a bureaucrat unless they have cleared the exam. It is another matter where they are placed and how they are placed but passing the exam is a mandatory and an unviolated restriction.
More than 90% of bureaucrats are corrupt? Seems like your just making up numbers without hard data to support your claim. That being said, corruption does exist and it is indeed strange how often people encourage their children to do the CSS. The bureaucracy is a permanent part of the state and why do we trust it so much? Especially since it is unelected. Do we have a military-bureaucratic complex that just runs the state?
Sir I am really sorry for giving such a high %age but everyone keeps saying that my own uncle was NDMA's president he keeps telling us how hard it was for him to survive as a non-corrupt officer. I will try to avoid making such value judgments or claims in future.
Haya but contacts work everywhere in Pakistan you can never be too sure about the authenticity of the test, even if they pass the exam on their own they do get an edge when it comes to promotions
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