The story goes that during an inspection of the army’s artillery regiment, an officer noticed five men manning a single gun. Curious as to what role each man fulfilled, the officer inquired as to what process they fired. The first man said his job was to load the gun with ammunition. The second said he was the one that set the trajectory of the fire. The third one explained he was to pull the gun into place. The fourth said he had his finger on the trigger at all times, prepared to pull the moment his Captain gave the order. The fifth said he was there to hold the reins of the horse because it would get skittish when the gun would fire.
The only problem was the conversation was taking place long after horses had stopped pulling artillery guns. There was no horse there for the fifth man to hold. The story, whether true or not, has been mythologised as an example of the inefficiencies of big government.
Pakistan is currently in the midst of a massive rightsizing effort to bring to heel what is a bloated federal government. Last month, the government made recommendations to abolish some six ministries. On the chopping block were subjects such as education and health which have been devolved to the provinces. Many approaches have been suggested to implement such reforms over the years. Everything from complete devolution to a hybrid system in which the federal government creates a single ministry to monitor all of these provincial subjects have been suggested.
Without getting into the merits or demerits of such suggestions, one must question whether or not the government is even serious in its efforts. The resignation of Dr Kaiser Bengali from the austerity committee, the rightsizing committee, and the government expenditure committee came on Sunday, and by Monday it was clear he had done so in protest. The government is not serious about rightsizing and would rather protect jobs for bureaucrats according to the economist.
The resignation marks a scary moment. Pakistan is currently mulling over rightsizing because the IMF wants it to. But this isn’t the first time a government has considered such proposals. Every time, however, it seems the interests of politicians and bureaucrats overrules the dire need to clean up the federal government. This time around, one had hoped the discerning eye of the fund would have been enough to get the job done as it has proven to in the case of privatisation. Unfortunately, it seems the government might be more interested in giving the IMF the runaround.
