Bureaucracy—a facilitator or an impediment?
A complex structure with multiple layers and procedures is bureaucracy. In Latin, bureau means a writing table or desk; in French La bure means a cloth used on tables of…
Tragic collapse of Pakistan’s bureaucracy
Once, Pakistan’s bureaucracy stood as a pillar of governance in the sixties, entrusted with the nation’s future. Today, that edifice is crumbling—its foundations weakened by decades of decay. A recent…
Outsourced power: how aid agencies engineered Pakistan’s energy bureaucracy?—II
Enter 2025, it was decided that the fundamentally unsustainable power sector could only be saved by putting to waste years of policies and billions of dollars of gas-related investment and…
Bureaucracy issues
FOR the past several weeks, government workers in the richest country in the world have been quaking in their boots as they await the cuts proposed by the ominously named…
Bureaucracy’s place
THE first government of India immediately on independence was headed by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his deputy Vallabhbhai Patel. Both were barristers and were familiar with the British system…
Resizing the bureaucracy
The Ministry of Health faces abolition since the Cabinet Committee on Rightsizing recently recommended it. It all started with the abolition of Pak-PWD some weeks ago when a federal cabinet…
Brexit bureaucracy creates British nightmare for Dutch boat captain
When Dutch boat captain and engineer Ernst-Jan de Groot applied to continue working in Britain after Brexit, he became ensnared in a bureaucratic nightmare because of an online glitch and…
Revamping the bureaucracy
The government has decided to reform the bureaucracy. Far-reaching changes in the structure of bureaucracy would be incorporated to make it efficient and responsive to public needs. While the changes…
Better bureaucracy
PRIME Minister Imran Khan recently acknowledged the bureaucracy as the main tool for implementing his agenda of change. He addressed senior officers in Islamabad, flanked by his advisers, and promised…
What ails the bureaucracy?
The task force of Dr Ishrat Hussain has recently proposed to wrap up the central superior services (CSS) and replace it with specialized civil service in a bid to carry…
