Imran honours high-performing ministers, stresses innovation to improve results

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday asked the federal ministries to give precedence to the national interest and work on “out of the box solutions” to deliver as he awarded appreciation certificates to the “top ten best performing” government divisions.

In his address at the ceremony to award certificates to ministries recognised for their outstanding performance, he said the resolution of public concerns through effective policymaking and good governance was of paramount importance to win approval.

In order of marks secured, the departments include the Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Planning and Development, Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division, Ministry of Education and Professional Training, Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of Industries and Production, National Security Division, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

In line with Khan’s vision of good governance, the performance agreements were earlier signed between the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the ministries to achieve their targets.

The prime minister said no system could effectively function without the concept of reward and punishment.

“This is a great opportunity to encourage ministries to improve their performance for the benefit of people,” he said.

He suggested that to assess the qualitative performance, weightage should be given to the ministries that kept national interest above everything else.

He said increasing exports, finding import substitution and poverty alleviation were significant areas of national interest.

He recalled that reforms had been made to amend the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that allowed the bureaucrats to take initiatives.

Khan said a quarterly review of the performance of ministries was a step taken to develop among them a sense of competition to give their best.

The prime minister also congratulated Minister for Communications Murad Saeed for achieving the top position and said the youngest member of his cabinet delivered well in his ministry.

He said the government’s agenda was transformed into an actionable form through the performance agreement system.

He said 1,090 targets had been set by the ministries of which 424 would be completed this year, including 207 related to governance and 100 to infrastructure.

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