Economist magazine endorses Jhang model of governance

[LahoreEstate]

Monday, September 28, 2009

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Last week’s edition of the Economist magazine reflected on how a mid-career bureaucrat in Pakistan miraculously curbed corruption in his district in the Punjab. However, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has simply failed to implement throughout the province what the officer did in Jhang.

Several months back, the Punjab chief minister was reported to have ordered the immediate implementation of the Jhang model administration in all districts of the province to reduce corruption and improve service delivery, through citizens’ feedback, in otherwise inefficient and corrupt departments of revenue, police, health and others but nothing happened on the ground.

While the chief minister might have forgotten how a young DCO of Jhang had changed the complexion of the most corrupt departments under him, it is the international reputed magazine, the Economist, that indicated in its last week edition as to how the officer had used the technology of mobile phones to root out corruption in his district.

In its article ‘How a luxury item became a tool of global development’, the Economist acknowledged: “Mobile phones can be used to root out corruption in more direct ways. For example, Zubair Bhatti, a Pakistani bureaucrat, asked all clerks in the Jhang district who handled land transfers to submit a daily list of transactions, giving the amount paid and the mobile-phone numbers of the buyer and the seller. He explained that he would be calling buyers and the sellers at random to find out whether they had been asked to pay any extra bribes or commission. When charges were subsequently brought against a clerk, who had asked for a bribe, the others realised that Mr Bhatti meant business, and buyers and sellers reported a sudden improvement in service. Mr Bhatti extended the scheme to other areas, such as cracking down on vets who demanded bribes from farmers, and has proposed that the Jhang model, as it is now known, be adopted in other districts. ‘It could easily be institutionalised with a call centre,’ he says. ‘It could have big vote-getting influence’.”

Perhaps for Economist, the Jhang model has been implemented throughout the Punjab but on the ground this is not the case. One is not even sure whether after the departure of Zubair Bhatti, who later left government service, the Jhang model is any more implemented even in the district where it was introduced.

After The News had reported about the miraculous work of Zubair K Bhatti, he was summoned by Shahbaz Sharif, whom Mr Bhatti had given a detailed presentation following which he issued a directive for the implementation of the Jhang model administration in all other districts of the province. But it did not happen.

Bhatti had remarkably reduced corruption in the otherwise most corrupt revenue department’s registry offices, amongst Patwaris, in government hospitals etc by simply asking the concerned officials to submit daily the list of all property transactions registered with mobile numbers of both the seller and buyer, the total amount of due taxes and other basic details of the transactions. Similar orders were given to Patwaris in cases where Fard were given.

The clerks of the Revenue Department were told that the officer would personally call all these citizens on their given mobile numbers to find out if they were asked to pay any bribe or commission above and beyond the due taxes, if any. He did the same and within a few weeks time the things changed miraculously as far as getting of a Fard or Intiqal done and the registration of property was concerned.

Bhatti used to talk to different buyers of the property or those getting Fard or Intiqal in the district or those treated/ operated in the government hospital or those getting domicile/birth/death certificates etc on their mobile numbers to know if they had paid only the due taxes or were also forced to grease the right palms.

He had also presented to the chief minister voluminous record of different district departments along with the mobile numbers of citizens who had interacted with any official agency, with an offer to contact the ordinary souls on any of the given mobile numbers to see a change in the service delivery in the Jhang district.

The threat of personal and intimate feedback communicated directly to the DCO and the possibility of anti-corruption action had a massively deterrent effect. When he used to make calls and ask about the quality of service, he generally found out that petty hassles have mostly been eliminated.

http://thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24732