Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s decision to give the right-sizing committee one month to complete its remaining recommendations on abolishing unnecessary posts and restructuring federal institutions has placed a clear deadline before a reform process that has too often suffered from delay, bureaucratic resistance and lack of follow-through.
The deadline matters because Pakistan has heard promises of a smaller, more efficient and less expensive government many times before. Announcements about eliminating redundant positions, reducing administrative expenditure and improving the performance of federal institutions have regularly generated headlines, only to lose momentum once the initial political attention fades. The latest directive should therefore be judged not by the strength of its language but by what the government is able to place before the public when the one-month period expires.
The case for right-sizing is difficult to dispute. Pakistan’s federal government has accumulated layers of ministries, departments, autonomous bodies, vacant posts and overlapping functions over the years. Some institutions continue to perform functions whose relevance has diminished, while others have responsibilities that overlap with those of provincial or other federal bodies. Maintaining such structures consumes public resources at a time when the government is struggling to contain expenditure and taxpayers are being asked to shoulder a growing fiscal burden.
Every unnecessary position carries a recurring cost in the form of salaries, allowances, pensions and administrative overheads. The issue becomes even more difficult to justify when development spending is constrained and the state repeatedly seeks additional revenue through taxes and levies. A government that asks citizens and businesses to make sacrifices cannot indefinitely defend institutional excess simply because restructuring is difficult.
Some progress has already been reported. The government has closed the Utility Stores Corporation, the Pakistan Public Works Department and the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation. Vacant posts in various ministries and departments have also reportedly been abolished. These measures represent a move in the right direction, but the claims of savings need to be examined carefully.
Administrative reform cannot be measured merely by counting institutions closed or posts removed. An institution may disappear from the government’s organisational chart while its functions, employees and expenditure are transferred to another department. Similarly, abolishing posts may create immediate savings on paper but leave behind pension obligations, severance costs, contractual liabilities or expenses associated with outsourcing the same functions.
This is why the prime minister’s instruction for a third-party audit is particularly important. An independent review should establish precisely how many positions have been eliminated, what recurring expenditure has been removed, what one-time costs have been incurred and what liabilities remain. It should also determine whether functions of abolished institutions have genuinely disappeared, been streamlined or simply shifted elsewhere.
Without such verification, right-sizing could become another accounting exercise in which costs move from one column to another without producing meaningful fiscal savings.
Transparency will be critical. When the one-month deadline expires, the government should make the committee’s remaining recommendations publicly available. A ministry-wise breakdown should identify the posts proposed for abolition, institutions recommended for restructuring or merger, the estimated annual savings and the timeline for implementation.
The same principle should apply to the third-party audit. Its findings should be published once completed, with any information withheld from the public properly justified. References to administrative sensitivity should not become a convenient way of concealing decisions that affect public finances.
At the same time, right-sizing must not be confused with indiscriminate downsizing. Cutting positions simply to produce a headline number could weaken institutions that are already understaffed and impair the government’s ability to deliver essential services. The objective should be to eliminate genuine redundancy while protecting critical administrative capacity.
Each institution therefore needs to be assessed on the basis of its actual functions. Does the function remain necessary? Is it legally or constitutionally required at the federal level? Is another institution already performing the same task? Can the function be delivered more efficiently through technology or shared services? And if it is retained, can it be performed with fewer resources without compromising public service?
These are more meaningful questions than simply asking how many jobs can be cut. Technology can certainly improve productivity, but digitisation is not a substitute for institutional reform. A poorly designed process remains inefficient even after it is put online. Similarly, technology cannot compensate for unclear authority, weak accountability or unsuitable appointments. A successful restructuring exercise must therefore examine organisational design, decision-making chains and performance standards alongside staffing levels.
The government’s past record provides ample reason for caution. Successive administrations have announced plans to reduce the size of government, reform state-owned enterprises and eliminate fiscal waste. Yet implementation has often been partial or delayed. Bureaucratic resistance, political considerations and patronage have repeatedly diluted reform proposals.
That history makes the present one-month deadline significant. It converts another broad reform promise into a measurable commitment. The government will have considerably less room for ambiguity when the deadline arrives because it has itself established the timetable.
The credibility of the exercise will ultimately depend on whether politically difficult decisions are applied consistently. Right-sizing cannot mean abolishing positions in less influential departments while protecting redundant structures elsewhere. Nor can it become a mechanism for replacing permanent employees with more expensive consultants, contractors or temporary appointments. Genuine reform requires a comprehensive examination of expenditure and performance across the federal government.
There is also a broader principle at stake. Government should not be judged by its size but by the quality and value of the services it provides. A smaller state is not automatically a better state. What Pakistan needs is a government that performs essential functions effectively, avoids duplication, controls administrative costs and directs scarce resources towards areas that generate the greatest public benefit.
That means savings from right-sizing should not simply disappear into the general budget. Where possible, they should help create fiscal space for development, education, healthcare, infrastructure and other productive priorities.
The government has an opportunity to turn right-sizing from another reform slogan into a meaningful administrative transformation. But that will happen only if the process is transparent, independently audited and insulated from political interference.
When the one-month deadline expires, the public should not be asked to accept another assurance that progress has been made. It should be shown the numbers: how many posts have gone, which institutions have been restructured, how much recurring expenditure has been eliminated and when the remaining reforms will take effect.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has set the deadline himself. The real test begins when it expires. If the government can demonstrate measurable savings and lasting institutional reform, right-sizing could become one of the more consequential components of fiscal restructuring. If not, it will risk becoming another familiar story of committees, meetings and promises that ultimately disappear into the bureaucracy they were created to reform.