• Home
• Video
• Books by Ikram Sehgal
• About

Third World trading vehicle – Manpower potential – IV

(This is the FOURTH in a series of articles that will attempt to analyse our present system of EXPORT TRADE and recommend suitable alterations).

We have the best manpower in the world, whether it be the poorest unskilled labourers, personnel in white collar jobs or men in the military. Very often the potential of this manpower is not exploited in a determinate manner because of a failure of management. This failure is not born out of quality but out of subservience to an antiquated management style owing its roots to the worst examples of clerical mentality steeped in the nineteenth century. Visions can never be seen by men with small minds and smaller character, especially when ambitions are limited to their own individual selves and its personal glorification and aggrandisement.

In a recent issue of NEWSWEEK, Peter McGrath wrote an excellent summary on bureaucrats. “Civil servants,” he wrote “are employed for their technical competence.” According to the classic analysis of bureaucracy propounded by one of the founders of modern sociology, Max Weber, all bureaucrats, whether civilian or military, are vulnerable to a special corruption; the cult of expertise. This makes them contemptuous of people regarded by them as amateurs or dilettantes — especially legislators and those political appointees who run major government departments (in our case, no political appointee runs any major government department though this is pre-supposed in a democracy). There is inculcated in them a feeling of professional superiority which makes them treat the “rest” as uneducated underlings. This is particularly true in inherited bureaucracies, such as the one previously used in British India as a tool of the rulers, and who have now supplanted themselves as the rulers in their own right. To complicate the issue further, the cult of expertise has an obsession with secrecy, a belief that they have a moral sanction not to answer to anybody and that they are independent of any popular consent. The declarers of Martial Law are basically “innocents” having a penchant for accepting themselves guilty of stifling popular opinion, but the really deeply anti-democratic attitude is embedded in the bureaucracy’s “management style” which is fundamentally a flawed view of government and which functions in a similar manner whether in a democracy or under a Martial Law.

You can hardly take a bureaucrat and make him a doctor, an engineer or a computer specialist without specialised training, but we persist in making businessmen and bankers out of bureaucrats whereas both business and banking are a highly specialised business, what to talk of international commerce. If it was so easy, the young MBAs, brighter, more energetic would make better Chairmen of Corporations than the fossils selected from nowhere e.g. the former head of the Statistics Division having no import/export experience, finds himself transplanted as the Chairman TCP and brings it within one year to the point of extinction.

The game of Russian Roulette involves pushing one bullet into the revolver, spinning the chamber, putting the revolver to one’s head and pulling the trigger. The Pakistani version takes a much bigger gamble than the one in six chances envisaged in the Russian game. According to wags, Pakistanis put five bullets into the chamber and hope for the best.

This is best epitomised by putting bureaucrats to head commercial agencies. Once in a while you will find the exception to the rule, a really superb technocrat who adjusts himself well to business conditions and is an honest man. Most of the time you have people appointed to sensitive commercial appointments, who if they are honest, muddle through based on their integrity and discipline of work to stop any chicanery and fraud, and if they are not, they simply join the gang.
The people serving within the Corporations, having years of experience in their particular fields, are rarely considered for promotion to the Board of Directors, the qualifications/selection procedure having been made tough enough to deter the most die-hardy hopeful. Stupid as it may seem, the experience gained by the executives of the Corporation in the process of business over the years is then used in the “education” of the new incumbent, while he surrounds himself with the luxuries of life denied to him in the normal government jobs, the comforts of several cars, entertainment and travel at will etc. There is nothing so “heady” as spending other people’s money, specially the public money.

Before we get carried away and condemn the bureaucrat forever, especially the vast SILENT MAJORITY of them that sees nothing of these “perks” and are basically honest, dedicated men, very professional in their outlook, but working under the drudgery of a particular elite with the “cult of expertise”, we should remember that Third World countries need some public sector control over vital export/import resources, more so, as Countertrade (and barter) come to the fore of international trade.

As a matter of fact there is a vast pool within the public sector denied promotion within their own Corporations because of stringent rules enforced by the elite in the bureaucracy. I cannot imagine anything so stupid and obdurate as the regulations that insist that a man who has spent over two decades in the same organisation, has the experience and the expertise but cannot become a Director except by passing through a Ulysses type challenge. Can he become a Chairman? Never! And yet we persist in sending in one of the exalted few in as Chairman, neopyte though he may be in business. Not only does this act as a disincentive for the employees but is a tremendous morale-dampener, especially when the employees realize (5 times out of 6) that the appointee has no commensurate experience, may be more than less intelligent, and out of this inferiority complex and his normal training in profound obduracy, resorts to being childish and immature in most of his words and deeds.

The staff of the four organisations, EPB, TCP, RECP and CECP should become one unified “Pakistan Trade Services” and should form the bulk of the manpower of the proposed new concept. A ‘golden handshake’ should be given to those employees of any of the Corporations close to retirement or who choose not to join the ‘Pakistan Trade Services.’

The Pakistan Trade Services should have a unified cadre as per civil service rules with promotion upto Grade 22 within the corporations and appointment outside if their performance is exemplary. 100% of the posts of the Pakistan Trade Services upto the equivalent of Grade-16 at this time must be filled by the present employees of the three corporations, the EPB (and commercial departments of other government and semi-government organisations) as well as 70% of the posts above the equivalent of Grade-17 from them, including the Directors posts, who should have status of Joint Secretaries i.e Grade-20. The rest should be filled by selection on competitive basis or appointment from the Private Sector. Later the appointments upto the equivalent of Grade-16 can be on the same terms i.e competitive selection on an all-Pakistan basis.

The same manpower exists in EPB, TCP, CECP and RECP as in PIA or in CAA. It is the psychological outlook of betterment at the Corporate level and incentives that make all the difference. The tragedy is that the organisations image depend totally upon the personalities posted in as journeymen from the bureaucracy and as such their dedication level depends upon their personal character. Peter Drucker is often quoted, “Every man rises to his own level of incompetence.” Unfortunately we use these corporations as a constant testing ground to prove this theory.

The recruitment of the Management and subordinate staff should be from among the best and the brightest in the country both from the public and private sector. An organisation can be easily destroyed by choosing the wrong people. We must select from all over Pakistan, and give preference to those who will not turn this into another bureaucratic organisation or an Halfway House on the way to retirement. On the contrary, excellent salaries and prerequisites should be given to the new management, at par or even more than PIA, CAA, the nationalised banks, etc so that there is strong competition to serve this new trading concept for Pakistan.

The Pakistan Trade Services should also provide all the Commercial Counsellors/Attaches in the Pakistani missions abroad. As well fill Commercial posts in all the Government and semi-government organisations, especially pertaining to export and import, whether it be Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Ordnance Factories, the units of State Engineering Corporation, PERAC, Pakistan Steel, etc etc. Commercially trained personnel should be posted into these entities from the Pakistan Trading Services on a regular rotational basis.

Special care must be taken to weed out such corrupt elements of the TCP and EPB (and the CECP and RECP) and send them home as they have made enough money for themselves and in the process done substantial damage to Pakistan’s economy to last us uptil the next generation. Both TCP and EPB have excellent middle-level management and junior staff. Some of these people, poor beyond belief, are an example to everyone.

The tragedy is that the few black sheep among them not only manage to destroy the economy of Pakistan, but they hit at the very roots of existence of the poor, hardworking, honest and dedicated low middle level management and low level staff in government organisations, who in previous years, under an honest and able person, may have performed ably, exporting quite a few items from Pakistan, including mangoes, at a profit. Their only fault is that they belong to a system that has no accountability of any kind, therefore they are rendered dumb and helpless. As far as the black sheep are concerned they will accept any post, any demotion, to remain in the vicinity of the purse strings that help in the acquiring of their private fortunes.

We must give a fair opportunity to the present staff, give them such incentives which may allow them to use their potential to the fullest, an opportunity to exploit their own expertise for the general good of the nation. Given adequate security of service, an opportunity for promotions on performance, postings abroad, etc, he will excel at his job, with commensurate benefits all around. One of the main reasons for PIA’s success is the management style, now an inherent part of its system, whoever comes as the appointed Managing Director.

If nothing else, Pakistan has a great manpower potential. Pakistanis do not only fill blue-collar roles in the Middle East but are a majority of the white collar class. As BCCI has shown, Pakistanis make excellent banking executives at the international level. All in all, the manpower is present, someone simply has to exploit it.
Leadership has many definitions but basically it involves motivating the people around you so that they are ready to follow you to the ends of the Earth. A leader commands respect, not fear, and this can only be inculcated if your people know that you will be fair. Create a fair system and the results will precede the anticipations. If you want to exploit your manpower, you have to reach out and instil in them the feeling that they are secure and their further incentive lies in producing their best. You have to bring innovation and imagination into the system, depending upon the latent abilities of the employees of the Pakistan Trade Services to translate this into economic benefit for the nation. Radical, positive reform is not beyond the present Federal Minister for Commerce provided he can create a strong management team around him in the Ministry. Few people have the opportunity in their lifetime to leave their mark on a system and this is a good opportunity as any for the present incumbent.

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.