Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a bid to further improve the performance of federal ministries and transform the country’s governance system, will sign two-year (2021-23) performance agreements with federal ministers at a ceremony on Wednesday.
The signing of agreements was part of the Prime Minister’s comprehensive Civil Service Reforms Agenda, under which the government had initiated a new performance management system that brought the entire federal government together through one implementation tool of “Performance Agreements”.
These agreements cover all Divisions of the Federal Government. Last year, these were signed for one fiscal year i.e. FY 2020 – 2021 and now, agreements are being signed for two fiscal years (FY 2021 – 2023).
Read more: Institutional Reforms: Two things PM Khan needs to do right now
A total of 41 ministries have prepared 1,090 initiatives for the next two years. Of these, 426 initiatives will be completed by June 2022, 488 initiatives will be completed by June 2023 and 176 running initiatives will supplement the overall delivery of ministries for the next two years and beyond.
These Performance Agreements have been finalized after a rigorous process of review and evaluation. All ministries prepared work plans with a set of initiatives and quarterly targets to be achieved over the next two years.
These work plans were then reviewed by the Peer Review Committee (comprising senior officials of cross-sectoral ministries) for improvement. Feedback was then incorporated by the Ministries before submission to the PM Office.
Once the Agreements are signed, the process of quarterly performance review will begin which will enable the Prime Minister to keep track of his government performance for the next two years.
Government committed to reforming Pakistan
This system was not only helping all ministries set their annual work plans but was also creating space to embed the reform agenda into the government’s system.
As the targets were collectively reviewed quarterly through a digitized platform, it was playing a key role in identifying bottlenecks and addressing cross-ministerial coordination challenges.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Establishment Shehzad Arbab was steering the process and was overseeing progress through quarterly reviews.
Read more: SAPM – more than a buzzword?