Snippets
Whil performance awards are in order but Pakistan, adhering to its so-called first-in everything culture, has instituted ‘non-performance’ awards given to choicest ministers of the over-extended and unwieldy federal cabinet. The Prime Minister’s Office said the rewards were being distributed in accordance with “The Performance Agreement” signed with the federal ministries in which targets were set for them completely ignoring the practice followed in the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy that the ultimate arbitrators of the performance of elected ministers are the people who accordingly vote in elections. No one has ever bothered to inform the PM that judging the performance of cabinet ministers is exclusively his responsibility and in this context, according to the notion of collective responsibility, PM not only publicly covers the performance of his colleagues but holds it as a sacred trust and never divulges it in public. The emphasis in this system is on tight-lipped unity instead of publicly applauding individual performance and that too in such a whimsical fashion completely dividing the already fractured cabinet. This funny episode appears to be the brainchild of an immature former bureaucrat serving as advisor to prime minister who, when confronted, was unable to justify such puerile activity, making a mockery of it. TW
