It is a strange irony that the very machinery entrusted with transforming society is itself so resistant to transformation. In Pakistan, the civil service, a remnant of colonial architecture, still largely functions to preserve status quo rather than to serve dynamically changing democratic needs. Despite decades of promises and periodic reform attempts, the structure remains deeply insulated, hierarchical, and disconnected from the people it was designed to serve. What has often gone unnoticed, or perhaps deliberately avoided, is that no amount of tinkering at the top can yield meaningful results if the base of the governance pyramid— local government— remains dismantled or disempowered. Without devolving authority, embedding accountability, and empowering grassroots governance, civil service reforms are bound to fail.
The crux of the issue lies in the contradiction between the centralized nature of Pakistan’s civil bureaucracy and the democratic ideal of participatory governance. Reforms have often been cosmetic, fragmented, or derailed by political discontinuity. Yet the civil service’s failure to adapt also reflects an institutional aversion to being embedded where service truly begins: among the people. Dr Ishrat Husain, former Governor of the State Bank and a leading voice in public-sector reform, has aptly observed that civil service efficiency cannot be achieved in isolation from a robust and functioning local government. His exhaustive report, “Civil Service Reforms in Pakistan: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective”, highlights that without elected, empowered local governments, the implementation of policy becomes distant, accountability becomes blurred, and the very spirit of governance is diluted.
The historical record reflects this stagnation. The Cornelius Commission (1962), Bhutto’s 1973 Administrative Reforms, Musharraf-era decentralization, and reform efforts between 2019 and 2022 under Dr Husain himself all attempted to reconfigure the state’s bureaucratic DNA. Yet none succeeded in insulating reform from political exigencies or shifting the mindset of the service from command to community engagement. These attempts also failed to address a pressing and controversial fault line: the overwhelming presence of federal civil service officers in provincial roles, particularly the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) officers, who continue to dominate top provincial positions. This has caused visible resentment among officers from Provincial Management Services (PMS), who view themselves as disadvantaged in promotions, postings, and representation. Such federal hegemony weakens provincial autonomy, discourages local talent, and undermines trust within the service itself. It also breeds inefficiency, as officers parachuted into provinces often lack local knowledge, language skills, and socio-cultural insight.
To further compound the problem, there exists an insidious fusion of political power and bureaucratic patronage that distorts merit, violates conflict-of-interest principles, and entrenches corruption. Politicians in power often have relatives occupying key bureaucratic posts, a practice that breeds impunity and dilutes institutional impartiality. Reports and field observations have documented frequent bypassing of merit-based recruitment processes, with appointments often influenced by nepotism, political loyalty, or the exchange of illicit financial favours. Recruitment at the provincial level, especially in lower administrative tiers and even district setups, has become a marketplace for palm-greasing, where deserving candidates are elbowed out by those with connections or cash. The very idea of a neutral, professional, and competitive civil service becomes a farce in such an environment. In many districts, administrators serve as loyal extensions of local politicians, rather than as independent custodians of public interest.
While Specialized Training Programs (STPs) and the Common Training Programme (CTP) already exist, and performance evaluations have been updated under the Performance Management System (PMS), these are rendered toothless in a system where patronage overrides professionalism. Lateral entry mechanisms and performance-based career progression— concepts borrowed from OECD countries and championed by international development institutions— hold promise but are vulnerable to abuse without stringent oversight. As Dr Nadeem Ul Haque of PIDE emphasizes, unless recruitment and evaluation systems are firewalled from political interference, even well-designed reforms will implode under the weight of systemic rot. Dr Adil Najam has echoed this sentiment, noting that “a corrupt civil service cannot deliver clean governance,” and that unless institutional independence is protected, the civil service will remain an elite club rather than a national asset.
Globally, civil service transformations have hinged not merely on institutional redesign but on creating a culture of integrity and accountability. Singapore’s transformation under Lee Kuan Yew was possible not just because of transparent recruitment or high salaries, but because of ruthless enforcement of anti-corruption laws and a zero-tolerance approach toward nepotism. Ghana and Rwanda have introduced legal provisions to check conflicts of interest, mandating asset declarations and creating independent monitoring bodies. Pakistan must follow suit. Laws must be introduced and enforced requiring all civil servants and elected officials to disclose conflicts of interest and assets. Recruitment bodies such as the FPSC and provincial PSCs must be made autonomous, insulated from influence, and monitored through external audits and civil society engagement.
In Pakistan’s case, success will hinge on building a culture of professionalism, integrity, and bottom-up accountability that runs from the village council to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. A bureaucracy that is accessible, incorruptible, and competent is not merely an administrative ideal— it is the foundation upon which any hope of democratic and development-oriented governance must stand.
The solution, therefore, is not to merely reform civil service in a technocratic sense, but to reconceive the entire governance structure as citizen-centric. Elected local governments must not be an afterthought but the foundation upon which civil servants are deployed. Promotions and postings should favour those who have served in remote or underserved areas. Real-time e-governance tools should be deployed to monitor performance and redress grievances. Oversight commissions, independent of executive or political control, should be established to investigate recruitment irregularities and protect whistleblowers. Officers who demonstrate integrity and innovation should be publicly recognized and incentivized. Without a cultural and institutional shift, the bureaucracy will remain a feudal relic masquerading as a modern institution.
Ultimately, as Dr Ishrat Husain cautioned, no reform will succeed without political consensus, bureaucratic ownership, and continuity beyond electoral cycles. His reform blueprint emphasized not only institutional reengineering but also the importance of building a shared vision between the political and administrative arms of the state. However, the problem runs deeper than bureaucratic inertia or structural inefficiencies. It lies in the entrenched unwillingness of Pakistan’s ruling elite— both civil and political— to relinquish control, decentralize authority, and subject themselves to meaningful accountability. There is an ingrained resistance to redistributing privileges and prerogatives that have historically served the powerful. As long as reform is treated merely as a technocratic exercise rather than a fundamental redistribution of power, it will continue to fail. Reform is not about cosmetic redesigning of procedures or renaming departments— it is about shifting who controls the levers of influence, how decisions are made, and in whose interest the system ultimately operates.
Pakistan can still carve a new path if it musters the collective will to uproot its own deeply embedded habits of patronage and elitism. This requires not only revisiting the architecture of governance but also reconstructing the ethos that drives public service. The people of Pakistan deserve more than hierarchical service from above— they deserve horizontal partnerships and locally rooted governance from within. This entails reimagining the civil servant not as an aloof bureaucrat, but as a responsive agent of change, intimately connected with the aspirations of citizens. Only when merit prevails over personal connections, and service outweighs status, will the bureaucracy begin to fulfill its democratic promise. That transformation will not be achieved by policy papers alone but by persistent civic pressure, a responsible media, and leadership willing to confront entrenched interests— even within its own ranks.
The path to a reformed civil service must be forged with a long-term vision, not short-term political compulsions. It requires safeguarding reforms from reversals and partisan manipulation, ensuring that they endure changes in government. Lessons can be drawn from countries like Singapore, South Korea, and even India—where reforms in public service were closely tied to performance-based evaluations, institutional autonomy, and transparency through digitization.
In Pakistan’s case, however, success will hinge on building a culture of professionalism, integrity, and bottom-up accountability that runs from the village council to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. A bureaucracy that is accessible, incorruptible, and competent is not merely an administrative ideal— it is the foundation upon which any hope of democratic and development-oriented governance must stand.
