Quaid's saying to Civil Servants

OUR GREAT LEADER

The Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah made an address to civil officers in Peshawar in April 1948, he said

‘The reason why I am meeting you is that I wanted to say a few words to you who are occupying very important positions in the administration of this province. The first thing that I want to tell you is that you should never be influenced by any political pressure, by any political party or any individual politician. If you want to raise the prestige and greatness of Pakistan you must not fall victim to any pressure but do your duty as servants of the people and the state, fearlessly and honestly.

The services are the backbone of the state. Governments are formed. Governments are defeated. Prime Ministers come and go, ministers come and go, but you stay on. Therefore, there is a very great responsibility placed on your shoulders. You should have no hand in supporting this political party or that political party, this political leader or that political leader. This is not your business.

Whichever government is formed according to the constitution, and who ever happens to be the prime minister or minister, coming into power in the ordinary course, your duty is only to serve that government loyally and morally but, at the same time, fearlessly, maintaining your high reputation, your prestige, your honour and the integrity of your service. If you start with that determination, you will make a great contribution to the building up of Pakistan of our conceptions and our dream-a glorious state and one of the greatest nations in the world.

While impressing this upon you, I wish also to take the opportunity of impressing upon our leaders and politicians in the same way, that if they ever try to interfere with you and bring political pressure to bear upon you, which leads to nothing but corruption, bribery and nepotism-which is a horrible disease and for which not only your province but others too are suffering-if they try to interfere with you in this way, I say they are doing nothing but disservice to Pakistan.

I hope that each of you will understand his own sphere of duty and responsibility and act with others harmoniously in complete cooperation, keeping in mind that each has to do his duty within the sphere to which he belongs, if on your part start with that determination and enthusiasm – and I hope the other side will also realize what a terrible evil they are raising up and how it demoralizes the services to try and influence this department or that departments, this office or that officer-and if you stick to your determination you will have done a great service to your nation. Putting pressure on service people is, I know, a very common fault of politicians and those with influence in political parties, but I hope you will now, from today, resolve and determine to act according to the humble advice I am giving you.

May be some of you may fall victim for not satisfying the whims of ministers. I hope it does not happen, but you may even be put to trouble not because you are doing anything wrong but because you are doing right.

Sacrifices have to be made, and I appeal to you, to come forward if need be to make the sacrifice and face the position of being put on the black list or being otherwise worried or troubled. If some of you will give me the opportunity of your sacrifice, believe me we will find a remedy for that very soon. I tell you that you will not remain on the black list if you discharge your duties honestly, sincerely and loyally to the state. It is you who can give us the opportunity to create a powerful machinery which will give you complete sense of security.’

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Courtesy : the NEWS, Islamabad – Saturday June 25, 2005 (Opinion by Mr. Hafizur Rahman captioned ‘Quaid and the services’)

The Central Superior Services of Pakistan

The Central Superior Services of Pakistan (or commonly known as CSS) is the name given to a group of highly prestigious and powerful Pakistani Federal Government Departments. Recruitment to the officer’s cadre (Basic Pay Scale 17) of these services is extremely competitive and it usually takes a year to complete the written examination and the subsequent psychological tests as well as interviews. Federal Public Service Commission of Pakistan or FPSC (http://www.fpsc.gov.pk/) is entrusted with this task and it is a general perception that it conducts the task of Competitive Examinations with full honesty. The minimum age and educational qualification for appearance in this examination is 21 years and a Bachelors (14 years of education) respectively while the maximum age limit is 28 years. According to the estimates of FPSC a total of 8,000 – 10,000 candidates apply for an appearance in its annual Competitive Examination. On an average 5,000 – 6,000 actually appear and approximately 250-500 candidates qualify the written portion of CSS Examination. Out of these successful candidates a total of 100-150 (roughly 2% of the actual applicants) make it to this sacred corps of bureaucrats.

Currently CSS includes the following Occupational Groups.

Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service

Police Service of Pakistan (PSP)

District Management Group (DMG)

Income Tax Group (ITG)

Customs and Excise Group (CEG)

Foreign Service of Pakistan (FSP)

Postal Group (PG)

Commerce & Trade Group (CTG)

Railways Group (RG)

Information Group (IG)

History of Civil Services in Pakistan

The civil Bureaucracy is a colonial legacy in this part of the world. The British used to rule the native population through Indian Civil Service (ICS) and most of the officers in ICS were British themselves. It was in the early 20th Century that the Indians also started competing against the British and many Indians eventually made it to the ICS. With the partition of India in 1947, the term 'Central Superior Services' was used in Pakistan and the concept of All-Pakistan Services continued. The latter consisted of the Civil Service of Pakistan and the Police Service of Pakistan, whereas the Central Services included the Pakistan Foreign Service and a broad category of Finance and other services. The Finance category included the Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service, Pakistan Railway Accounts Service,Pakistan Military Accounts Service, Pakistan Taxation Service, and the Pakistan Customs and Excise Service. The Central Services other than these included the Pakistan Postal Service,Pakistan Military Land and Cantonment Service, Central Secretariat Service, and Central Information Service. Each of these services had its own cadre and composition rules, specifying the total cadre strength in terms of its number of positions.

With the Civil Services Reforms of 1973 a new system of Common Training Program or CTP was introduced and all of these occupational groups (12 at that time) were required to go through a mandatory combined training at Civil Services Academy (CSA), Lahore. The batch of officers who attended CSA in 1973 is recognized as “1st Common”. Up till 5th Common the allocation of occupational groups was done after the culmination of Common Training Program but from 6th Common onwards this task has also been assumed by FPSC. Even till this day it is an official procedure that once the Probationary Officers successfully complete their CTP then they undergo some further Specialized Training Program (STP) in their own professional academies

Armed Forces and Civil Services of Pakistan

Commissioned officers of Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, and Pakistan Navy have their own quota of 10% in District Management Group (DMG), Foreign Service of Pakistan (FSP), and Police Service of Pakistan (PSP). Usually officers of Captain Rank are short listed by General Head Quarters (GHQ) and selected against this quota after the permission directly by Chief of Army Staff before interview process.

Reform of Civil Services

Despite the fact that Civil Services of Pakistan have been still running on the pattern set out by British Raj (no major change has been performed), the Musharraf government started a major reform process of it. The task was to be performed by National Commission of Government Reforms (NCGR) under the chairmanship of Dr. Ishrat Hussain, the former governor of State Bank of Pakistan. The final report that was published in September 2007 stated that four CSS cadres i.e., Pakistan Railway Service, Pakistan Postal Service, Commerce and Trade Group, and the Information Service of Pakistan, should be axed. According to the recommendation, Postal and Railway Service should be made autonomous commercial bodies, with Information Service be suspended till further notice. The report also highlighted broad changes in the examination system, with the recommendation of a personality test be made part of the selection process.