While announcing the performance awards for federal ministers and advisors Prime Minister Imran Khan admitted that he could not bring a change in the country as he had promised. However he refused to take responsibility for the negligence, shifting the blame instead to what he called the “flaws” in the system and the team chosen by him. This raises questions. How come a self-proclaimed seasoned politician with an experience of over two decades under his belt failed to notice the faults in the system and could not set them right. Again, Mr Khan is not justified to throw up arms and ask what he could do if ministers failed to perform. He had claimed before the elections that he had personally trained his team and if elected, it would hit the ground running. Many ascribe Mr Khan’s failures to incompetence and prejudice. For three years he failed to rein in the NAB because it fulfilled his directives to punish the opposition leaders and their alleged collaborators in the bureaucracy. He ignored the protests by bureaucrats and businessmen till government servants started to avoid signing files and businessmen were reluctant to make fresh investments. After sufficient damage having been dome the PM claims that he had now streamlined the NAB and bureaucrats should have no excuse for not signing the pending files.
The performance awards raise a number of questions. The announcement shows that over 40 Federal Ministers, Ministers of State, Advisors and SAPMs failed to put up satisfactory performance which indicates a weak leadership. This also challenges claims that the economy is doing well and the government has made outstanding achievements in protecting the environment as the names of the Finance Minister and SAPM Climate Change find no mention in the awards list.
Missing from the list are names of important ministers like Fawad Chaudhry, Shaukat Tarin, Hammad Azhar, Pervez Khattak, Ayub Afridi, Azam Swati and Farrukh Habib. This has caused heart burning among the cabinet members. As Mr Khan himself noted, the ministers not given awards failed to turn up at the ceremony. It was claimed by a prominent minister that those who had failed to fulfill their responsibilities had been rewarded.
