Business Recorder Editorials 23rd August 2026

Right-sizing in reverse

EDITORIAL: At a time when the federal government is promising right-sizing, eliminating unnecessary posts and reducing the burden of an oversized state, the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change has discovered something rather difficult to reconcile with that agenda: a separate Pakistan Climate Change Authority (PCCA) whose mandate, expertise and even personnel appear to substantially duplicate those of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination. Senator Sherry Rehman was therefore right to ask the most basic question during the committee’s review of the authority: what additional value is it actually creating?

The question becomes more important because the ministry itself is operating with shrinking resources. Its PSDP (public sector development plan) allocation stands at Rs2.478 billion after having already been reduced from Rs3.5 billion to Rs2.7 billion in the previous fiscal year. Yet 24 posts have been sanctioned for a separate authority, while technical experts who previously served within the ministry have reportedly been moved to the new body. Even coordination with provincial governments, cited as one of the authority’s functions, already falls within the ministry’s mandate. If the same functions are being performed by substantially the same people under another institutional roof, the case for creating that roof requires a very convincing explanation.

So far, none appears to have been provided. This is particularly troubling because it reflects a much wider disease in Pakistan’s administrative machinery. New authorities, bodies, committees and institutional structures are created with remarkable ease, often without any publicly demonstrated cost-benefit analysis showing why existing institutions cannot perform the proposed function. Each new structure brings offices, employees, budgets and administrative expenses. Over time, the state grows larger without necessarily becoming more capable.

That is precisely the opposite of what the government says it is trying to achieve. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has recently ordered the elimination of unnecessary government posts and accelerated implementation of the federal right-sizing programme. The finance ministry, meanwhile, has repeatedly stressed the need to contain expenditure because the state simply cannot continue carrying an inefficient administrative structure that consumes scarce resources without producing corresponding results. Creating overlapping institutions while simultaneously promising to eliminate duplication makes a mockery of that exercise.

Climate change makes this case even more serious. Pakistan faces increasingly severe threats from floods, extreme weather and glacial melt. The Senate committee was informed that the country has more than 30,000 glaciers, while concerns were also raised about the growing vulnerability of communities in high-mountain regions. Scarce climate resources should therefore be directed towards technical expertise, preparedness, adaptation and protection of vulnerable populations. Every rupee consumed by unnecessary administrative duplication is a rupee unavailable for the work that actually needs doing.

The prime minister should take serious notice, both because climate governance matters enormously and because this case raises uncomfortable questions about how government itself operates. Are summaries proposing new authorities subjected to rigorous examination before reaching the approval stage? Is duplication with existing institutions properly assessed? Are projected costs measured against identifiable benefits? Or, are additional bodies being created because bureaucratic and political interests find expansion considerably easier than reform?

These questions require answers before the PCCA is allowed to become another permanent fixture of the state. The government should review its mandate against that of the climate ministry, disclose its staffing and operating costs, identify measurable functions that could not be performed within the existing ministry and demonstrate what additional outcomes taxpayers are receiving in return.

If that exercise establishes a genuine need for a separate authority, its existence can be justified. If it does not, the government already knows what to do. After all, it has spent considerable time telling everybody else about the virtues of right-sizing. It might begin by applying the principle to itself.

When the wheels stop turning

EDITORIAL: The nationwide goods transporters’ strike has been deffered for 40 days after nine days of disruption, but the economic damage has already been serious and the dispute itself remains unresolved. The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association estimates losses to exports and allied trade at nearly $900 million, with shipments missed, raw materials stranded and factories facing shortages. The distinction matters because this is only a pause: transporters have made clear that the strike can return if the government fails to honour its commitments.

It is therefore a bit rich of authorities to appeal for national unity and cooperation after allowing the dispute to reach this point. Transporters had been complaining about rising fuel costs, toll taxes, parking facilities and axle-load limits, all matters that required engagement with different arms of government. Yet meaningful negotiations came only after freight movement had been paralysed for more than a week and the consequences had spread far beyond the transport industry.

The state bears responsibility for keeping the machinery of the economy functioning, and few parts of that machinery are as fundamental as transport. When trucks stop moving, imported raw materials remain at ports, locally produced inputs cannot reach factories and finished goods cannot reach ships. Domestic commerce between provinces is disrupted as well. This is therefore far more than an industrial dispute between transport operators and the government. Once the logistics network seized up, it became a national economic emergency.

The damage to textiles is particularly alarming. Pakistan’s flagship export industry depends upon uninterrupted movement of cotton, yarn, fabric, dyes, chemicals, machinery parts and finished consignments. Industry representatives have warned that containers have remained stuck at ports and terminals, production faces disruption and exporters risk missing shipment deadlines. In international trade, those failures carry consequences that cannot always be calculated from the immediate value of delayed consignments.

An exporter who misses a deadline can lose an order. Repeated failures can lose a customer. And when international buyers begin questioning whether Pakistan can deliver reliably, future orders can migrate to competing countries with more dependable supply chains. Lost credibility, reputation and market share can therefore prove considerably more expensive than the headline estimate of the immediate financial damage. Pakistan already struggles to expand exports and generate the foreign exchange its economy desperately requires. Allowing domestic administrative disputes to undermine the exports it already has is indefensible.

The 40-day suspension must therefore be treated as a deadline for settlement rather than an opportunity for everybody to return to business as usual. The government has committed to reviewing toll taxes, petroleum pricing, parking problems and axle-load disputes, with some matters expected to go before the federal cabinet. Those commitments must now be converted into clear decisions within the agreed period. The transporters, for their part, must negotiate responsibly and recognise the enormous economic consequences of shutting down the country’s freight network.

There is also a longer-term lesson. Pakistan cannot allow critical export and logistics infrastructure to become collateral damage whenever disputes arise. Government, transport associations, ports and major industrial bodies need a permanent mechanism for resolving such disagreements before they reach the point of nationwide disruption. Emergency arrangements should also protect essential export cargo while negotiations continue.

The strike may have stopped for now, but the clock has merely been reset for 40 days. That time must be used to produce a durable settlement. Otherwise, the trucks could stop again, and the largest bill will once more be presented to exporters, workers and an economy that had nothing to do with the dispute in the first place.