The cost of revolving-door bureaucracy

EDITORIAL: The appointment of Pakistan’s seventh federal health secretary in 18 months should not be viewed as another routine bureaucratic reshuffle. It is symptomatic of a much larger problem: the state’s inability to provide its senior officials with the continuity needed to understand problems, formulate policy and see reforms through. If this is how officialdom is expected to function, there is little reason to expect effective policymaking or consistent implementation. The latest incumbent, Dr Fakhre Alam has been given charge for three months, with the notification reportedly making clear that he can be removed even earlier. He follows a remarkably rapid succession of officials: Nadeem Mahboob, Nasiruddin Mashood, Waqarul Hasan, Hamed Yaqoob, Aslam Ghauri and Captain Mahmood, each of whom did not remain in position for long. This problem, which effectively amounts to ad hoc governance, extends beyond the health ministry. Across Pakistan’s bureaucracy, officials are routinely transferred or replaced before they have had time to properly understand the institutions they are meant to run. A new secretary arrives, spends months familiarising himself with the ministry, its personnel and problems, consults stakeholders and perhaps begins shaping a reform agenda, only to be moved elsewhere. His successor then starts the process afresh. Such a system is tantamount to maladministration because a vital ingredient of good governance, i. e. , institutional memory, is continually eroded. Complex problems cannot be understood through briefings alone; they require sustained engagement, detailed consultation, and an appreciation of what has been tried, why it succeeded or failed, and what needs to change. Frequent turnover discourages such long-term thinking. An official whose tenure may end within months has little incentive to invest in reforms whose results may take years to materialise. Foreign diplomats have also privately complained about the issue of bureaucratic churn, pointing to the futility of spending months developing an understanding with a particular secretary, only to find that the official has been transferred and the entire process of engagement must begin again. Such instability weakens the state’s capacity to engage coherently with its own citizens, and with foreign governments and institutions. The health sector provides an especially worrying example because the consequences of administrative weaknesses can be immediate and serious. One wonders, for instance, whether the culture of short-term appointments had any bearing on the circumstances surrounding the tragic fire at PIMS. It would be neither fair nor accurate to attribute the gross incompetence demonstrated there solely to the frequent changes of health secretaries. Yet it is legitimate to ask whether a secretary with a longer tenure, deeper institutional knowledge and a better grasp of the problems confronting establishments under the federal health ministry might have been better placed to identify vulnerabilities and demand timely corrective action. The health minister, it should be acknowledged, does not have the authority to appoint officers in BPS-20 and above, with a senior ministry official revealing that two secretaries were removed during high-level meetings not chaired by him. The minister therefore cannot fairly be blamed for this revolving door. Nevertheless, one does wonder whether he has raised the need for continuity within the cabinet and with the bureaucracy as forcefully as he does on various other issues. Ministers may not make these appointments, but they can insist that constant disruption is damaging the institutions they are responsible for overseeing. Pakistan cannot build effective institutions if its bureaucracy is perpetually starting over. Stability is not a luxury for government officials. It is a prerequisite for institutional memory, expertise, accountability and meaningful reform. A system that continually reinforces short-term thinking should not be surprised when it produces little work of long-term value. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026

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