Outline:

1)      Introduction

2)      Body

i)                    Discussion on good governance in reference to Pakistan.

ii)                   Examples of countries moving from bad governance to good governance (China, Malaysia, Korea etc.)

iii)                 Effects of bad governance

iv)                 Fruits of good governance

v)                  Causes of bad governance ( lack of education, lack of political will, derailment of democracy, lack of devolution of power, rotten justice system, incompetent police system, Lack of modern E-governance, Poor law and order situation)

vi)                 Remedies for bad governance (Education, Political will, political stability, devolution of power, improving justice system, improving policing system, Introduction of Technology, improvement of law and order situation)

3)      Conclusion

Governance is defined as the methods used by the ruling class to impart services to the common man whereas Good governance is the use of these methods for the betterment and welfare of the public. Thus this process of governance can become a major tool for the well being of the people and on the contrary, can become the instrument of suppression and oppression on the part of the state against its people.

When Pakistan became independent in 1947, it inherited along with many other things, a colonial bureaucracy, and a fractured political structure. This fragmented political landscape further weakened with the emergence of a strong military in cohesion with an incompetent bureaucracy and a politicised judiciary. The governance which was a prerogative of the public representatives was taken by military, bureaucracy, and judiciary. This weakened the role of political governments at the expense of growing power of the other three main pillars of the state. The imposition of martial law by the military generals shows the dismal condition of our political system and the power of army generals. This deteriorated the world standing of our economy substantially in all major fields including economy, security, politics and much more. On the other hand, countries with strong political governments emerged as regional giants.

The emergence of China, Korea, and Malaysia at the global stage was a reflection of their policies that led towards good governance. Before the Communist Revolution of Mao Zedong, China was going through a period of international conflicts and foreign interventions. Mao Zedong brought an end to these by showing the spirit and courage that others lacked. The major achievement of him was that he did not base his model on mere slogans but practical good governance and well being of the people. Thus he turned around the fate of Chinese people through his leadership and good governance, which others followed. Same is the case study of Korea and Malaysia. The leaders of these countries proved phenomenal in providing good governance to their people, which other leaders failed to prove.

Pakistan is also considered very low in terms of providing good governance to the people due to many drawbacks in our system. This has resulted in a widespread chaos in our country, the current bad law and order situation is the result of none other than the bad governance. Along with the bad law and order situation, we are facing an economic crisis in our country. Some other side effects of this bad governance include a high rate of crimes, corruption at all levels, a low ratio of education, separatism and extremism etc. If we improve our system we will be able to provide people with the most-wanted peace, which is the backbone of economic prosperity. Youth will get education and job opportunities which will shrink the space for terrorist organizations to motivate them for their agenda. This will significantly reduce terrorism, extremism, and separatism across the country because those energies will be utilized in a positive direction.

Compared with China, Korea, and Malaysia, Pakistan is much richer in natural resources and labor capital but we are still lagging behind them in the race to development. This is due to the indifferent situation that our country has faced over the years. The causes of our economic disparity and our failure to deliver services to the people are numerous and embody in our internal situation. The very first reason is the lack of education in our country. The literacy ratio in all the above-mentioned countries is more than 80 percent whereas in our country less than 50 percent are literate. This creates a huge difference in our approach to good governance.

Most of the public representatives are illiterate and not aware of the global trends towards governance. They rely on the old tactics of employing methods such as patronage of the caste system and aggravating racial and ethnic tensions for votes. These people when elected serve only their personal interests or the narrow interests of their families and close relatives. This shows the level of awareness and education in our society which is easily exploited by such corrupt people.

Lack of political will on the part of governments and bureaucracy shows another gloomy side of our journey towards good governance. The high-educated bureaucrats, when nominated for the posts, did not focus the problems of the poor people while in their delusions in A.C rooms. This lack of political will is one of the major reasons for our aggravated situation in terms of governance.

The situation of political elite and bureaucracy is though somewhat self-generated but it has an external side too. The derailment of democracy and arm-twisting of political leadership leaders at the hands of the establishment is yet another reason for our bad governance. The establishment has never allowed institutions to mature and political culture to flourish, imposing martial laws after a brief period or governing from the backseat. The martial laws of General Ayub, General Yahya, and the imposition of emergency by the Musharraf regime are some of the worst examples of our political history. This is in addition to the politics of the 90s when civilians were mere puppets at the hands of establishment or were in confrontation with each other.

The military, bureaucracy, and politicians in cohesion have never allowed powers to devolve to the elected representatives at lower levels. The concept of basic democracies during Ayub’s era and of local government system during Musharraf’s regime can be called some steps towards devolution of power but these steps were taken by the military rulers merely for their own vested interests.  The other reason which destroyed the whole logic of devolution of power was the lack of accountability both at the local level and at the upper level. There was no institution or commission to look into the financial matters of the local bodies and NAB which is responsible for the accountability was under the influence of political leaders.

Apart from the NAB, the justice system is also too weak to provide justice to the people and to curb corruption. It is evident from the legal cases that go on even for decades without any proper judgment. The other major problem in our justice system is nepotism and corruption. It is impossible to expect that this corrupt justice system will provide justice to the poor and will work towards uprooting corruption. The uprising for the restoration of the judiciary during Musharraf’s and PPP’s governments was seen to be some positive indicators but haven’t been transformed into the lower judiciary.

Judiciary cannot succeed in providing justice without proper investigation and collection of necessary evidence. The policing system in our country is not at par with the developed countries of the world; this allows criminals to continue their criminal activities at will without worrying about the law enforcing agencies because most of them get free through bribery or nepotism. The incompetency and non-professionalism add to the massive level of corruption in our criminal justice system.

Technology is the best solution to reduce the role of the human in our governance and to keep a proper check on all the statistics and working. This has not been the case of our governance, which is still employing the old methods of Mughal Era of keeping heavy files and doing a lot of paperwork. This not only wastes resources but also the all-important time which can be dedicated to the welfare of the system. This also adds to the corruption and other reasons of bad governance.

Lastly, one of the major reasons of such bad governance is the poor law and order situation that our country is facing. Today we see many different threats on multiple fronts, both from internal enemies and external enemies. The rise of extremism though has roots in our own internal situation but these groups are backed by the foreign powers to spread chaos in our country. This has significantly hampered efforts for the betterment in governance.

Now the question arises that how can we deal with this situation. The first major step will be to educate our people in order to provide them with the mental ability to differentiate between good and bad.  Education will help nourish their minds and then they will be able to make choice according to their own comprehension to whom to vote for. This will not only crush this so-called Baradari system but will soon conscious them against politics of hatred and division.

The representatives elected by the educated people will be more favorable to bring a change in the system. This is due to the fact that they will have more political will to do what non-educated cannot do. They will have the know-how of the system and will know how to deal with the corrupt system. The corrupt bureaucracy or civil servants will not be able to misguide them or keep them in dark regarding the system and its working.

This good governance, if brought by the educated people, will make it impossible for the military and establishment to make their way through the system. The popular support for a certain political government gives the military a chance to dig into the system and to take over. Through good governance, political representatives can win the hearts and minds of the common people, which will virtually fill any gap for misadventure on the part of non-political forces.

The major lacuna in the democratic system is the non-devolution of powers to the local representatives. Once this power is devolved to the locals, this will generate a sense of ownership in the minds of common people. Common people will start considering themselves a part of the governance and will try to save this system from any undemocratic move.

This transfer of power to the locals will improve governance on one hand but on the other hand, it will also generate some ambiguities and corrupt practices in the system. A strong accountability system will be the backbone of such a system, which will keep an eye on the practices of the local representatives. NAB and other such departments can work as a major anti-corrupt force in this regard.

NAB is a department which can clamp down on corrupt people but it will need the help of a competent police force and a free and fair justice system. Judiciary at the lower levels should be made free of any pressure and answerable to the system. Salaries of the lower judges should be made at par with the high courts to stop them from corruption and other such evil practices. Along with this, police should be made nonpolitical and any recruitment on the political should be declared null and void. Competent officers should be given chance to prove their abilities.

To improve the judicial system, police system, and governance, on the whole, the introduction of E-governance is a must. E-governance will reduce the role of humans in the governance and will make the system more transparent and answerable. E-governance will not only save major costs of papers but will reduce the time taken on hefty paper works. The introduction of computerization of land records by the federal and provincial governments is a major step towards good governance.

The improvement of the policing system, the judicial system and the induction of modern technology will ultimately improve the law and order situation. Better law and order situation and the return of peace will greatly improve the overall governance system. More foreigners will invest in Pakistan and thus will provide more job opportunities to the youth.

Good governance is the need of the hour otherwise, it will be difficult even to keep the state integrated together. It is time for the political elite to think that whether they want to improve the governance system or not. Governments must focus on human development rather than the construction of roads and buildings and resources should be equally distributed among populations. In fact, share for the poor provinces should be increased, only then it will give rise to a state which will be free of ethnic and provincial tensions. The government can take help from intelligentsia and organizations which can help in improving governance system. The first step of computerization has been taken but what next to follow!