Citizens Portal: Improving governance through technology
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government has taken a number of innovative initiatives to improve the quality and efficiency of public services in the country. Besides proposed reforms in the stale, pathetic and grossly inefficient bureaucracy and tax collecting administration, the Federal Bureau of Revenue, it introduced a simple application by the name of Citizen Portal for redressing citizens’ grievances. For decades, complaints by ordinary citizens have fallen on deaf ears, owing to a non-responsive bureaucracy, which no political government has succeeded in holding accountable for its many failures.
Among many problems that governments in the developing world face is how to make the public servants work in the interest of the local communities. The problem is that colonial attitudes persist. The bureaucrats are selected through competitive examination, but by holding important positions for political connections, they begin to act as rulers more than public servants. Pakistan’s administrative system has become over politicized, as the political parties in power have used them for their political ends. At the lower levels where the public has to approach the functionaries for provision of public services from education to health, sanitation and water, they face many hurdles. In my view, the biggest problem for Pakistan is not the lack of resources or human skills; it is bad governance. The PTI government has actually placed governance at the top of its priorities since its paucity can breed corruption in the society.
Pakistan and many other countries have found that the old methods of making complex government bureaucracy work do not help. One major reason why they have not worked is lack of transparency. Actually, citizens in Pakistan do not know which office to approach or who to talk to when they cannot get access to services, such as broken street lights, clogged sewerage lines, dysfunctional water supply or heaps of garbage collecting in the streets. There are other issues as well that include the quality of public health and educational institutions and developmental agencies in the cities and rural areas misappropriating funds.
Experts on governance and public administration have known for decades that bureaucracies cannot function well without a vigilant public, having access to relevant officials and registering their complaint with the confidence that they would be resolved. After decades of political and bureaucratic corruption in Pakistan, the public in general has lost faith both in politics and public administration. Year after year, they have found that complaints go unaddressed, and if they have to get things done in their favor they have to grease someone's palm.
The biggest problem for Pakistan is not the lack of resources or human skills: it is bad governance.
Rasul Bakhsh Rais
With the advancement of technology, governments in some of the developing countries have found a solution in e-governance. It has the potential to solve many problems, like who to approach for which issues, and how to follow up on things that have not been done. Citizen Portal serves exactly that purpose with a difference. It has an elaborate mechanism of citizens’ feedback. If a complaint has not been addressed to one’s satisfaction, and if it is delayed for any reason, the matter lands on the desk of higher official. If not resolved at any level, it reaches the office of the prime minister.
Those who have used the application say it is easy to register oneself and lodge a complaint against any department anywhere in Pakistan. It does not limit the scope to the federal government departments or agencies; it also includes provincial subjects and private enterprises and businesses that are regulated by the federal and provincial governments. If not resolved, the complaint stays on the web and also in the account of the citizen that has registered it. He or she can check the status and see if the complaint has been resolved or remains pending.
The Citizens Portal has been the most successful of the steps taken by the PTI government, as it is evident from the fact that more than forty-five thousand citizens have voted and rated it at 4.1. The App was declared the second best in the world moot on governance this year. But all is not well with it. The old-fashioned bureaucracy has found new ways to make this system fail. Many of the complaints that were not fixed, showed resolved in the status. Many citizens have begun losing trust in the portal for the reason that officials responsible for handling complaints have started faking their resolution.
There is another reason why the enthusiasm for the Citizens Portal is dying down: the long delays and the conventional bureaucratic method of passing the buck to other departments and agencies or stating lack of funds. It is good that Prime Minister Imran Khan has finally taken notice of the worsening affairs of the portal and has constituted a committee to address responsibility.
In Pakistan, they start reforms with high spirits and a lot of excitement, promising a big change, but eventually everything comes back to the quality of governance. The PTI is facing the same challenge that others before it have confronted—unresponsive and unaccountable pubic services. Reviving and strengthening the portal may also revive the trust of the citizen and hopes that the PTI will be different and succeed where others have failed.
– Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Twitter: @RasulRais