Rahmatullah Buriro
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had visited the offices of the Sindh Secretariat early in the morning and taken notice of the attendance and absence of the staff and administration. During this visit, the Chief Minister also came across the problem that not only the heads of many provincial departments, secretaries, DGs and MDs, but also the administrative staff working on important postings were accustomed to arriving late. After this process and review, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah came to know that the secretaries of the departments and their related staff had become accustomed to arriving late in the morning. In those days, the Chief Minister had taken notice of this slow administrative practice and the negligence of the heads of departments or staff and had given strict instructions. After such a process, the secretaries had made it a habit to arrive early in the Sindh Secretariat for a few days. But now the same situation is happening again. This process of the Chief Minister will be implemented. The only active provincial minister of the Sindh cabinet, Jails, Khanajat and Works and Service Ali Hassan Zardari, will improve the institutional and administrative performance. He keeps visiting all over Sindh to review administrative and institutional development works. Whether it is a visit to Sukkur Jail or the problems of the prisoners and administration of Hyderabad Jail or the work of the newly constructed jail in Thatta district, it seems that one can learn from Haji Ali Hassan Zardari how to make surprise visits at any time. Recently, he visited the Secretariat Office of the Works and Services Department in the Sindh Secretariat early in the morning.
During the visit, he reviewed the staff who were not on duty on time and the poor cleanliness there and on that occasion he instructed Secretary Muhammad Nawaz Soho to make the absence of the staff present on time and the poor performance in the office is that the cleaning staff does not even clean, which should be taken into action immediately. These small actions reveal how much laziness and negligence the administration has that the provincial minister reaches the office but the administration is absent. The surprise visit of Works and Services Minister Ali Hassan Zardari to the Secretariat Office early in the morning was not a formal action, but an important step towards institutional decorum and better governance. The performance of government institutions has always been linked to public convenience, and when the administrative heads themselves go to the field and review the activities of the officials, a new sense of discipline and responsibility is created in the staff. Delay, laziness and irresponsibility have been a major problem in most of the institutions of Sindh. The Works and Services Department has not been above this. But with the recent changes, there is an impression that the performance of the department is improving. Ali Hassan Zardari’s visit is a message to the staff that now there will be no room for negligence in government services. Such administrative activities not only speed up the file work of the department, but also increase confidence in the quality and timely completion of projects. It is true that institutions do not run only by orders. But they can improve only with the responsibility, transparency and honesty of the staff. In our view, if such discipline and supervision are continued, the Works and Services Department will set an example for other provincial departments as well. Because ultimately, the real purpose of good governance is to provide convenience to the people, and this convenience is possible only when institutions become a beacon of efficiency instead of laziness and negligence. It has been more than a year since the Sindh Cabinet Minister Ali Hassan Zardari’s continuous and dynamic work shows that there is a dire need to improve the deterioration in institutions. In this regard, the Provincial Minister for Prisons and Buildings and Roads Department Ali Hassan Zardari is actively working. As a result, institutional improvement is visible. The figures in the last budget show that a huge network of development works has been laid in the provincial infrastructure of Sindh. Be it the institutional buildings under construction or the network of roads throughout Sindh, it can be said that the work being done rapidly is the result of the hard work and activity of the Provincial Minister and his team. In particular, in addition to carrying out construction work for the facilities of the prisoners in various jails, the immediate resolution of the complaints of the prisoners and the administration to treat the prisoners better are the issues that need to be addressed. Implementation is also the result of the hard work of the current minister.
In addition, the honor has been bestowed upon the current cabinet minister Haji Ali Hassan Zardari that the first jail construction in the 70-year history of Sindh, the District Jail Thatta, is also being carried out under the leadership of his ministry. It is hoped that the top leadership of the PPP and the Chief Minister Sindh will take special interest in inaugurating the newly constructed jail in Thatta district. It is hoped that like Haji Ali Hassan Zardari, other provincial ministers will have to actively review the institutional and administrative works on an urgent basis. If Haji Ali Hassan Zardari can actively improve the institutions and ministries under his responsibility to bring about institutional improvement, other ministers should also not delay in doing so.
