Pakistan: Maryam Nawaz’s resignation

Maryam Nawaz Sharif had been asked by the Lahore High Court to prove her credentials for the post of the chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Youth Loan Programme (PMYLP). Maryam in response has finally chosen to resign from the job on which her father the Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan had appointed her. Justifying her appointment, she has made the case that since she had volunteered for the post, her father, using his prerogative as the PM of the country, had appointed her. The question is, does the PM have any such prerogative? If yes, why has it not been challenged in court? If not, the PM had unlawfully appointed his daughter to a job that involved transactions of billion of rupees without following the rules of appointment. Maryam’s appointment is not the only case that has come to haunt the government. Already, fingers have been raised at the PML-N leadership for favouring family members and cronies and giving important positions and posts to its close aides or those considered loyal.

Interestingly, PML-N had criticised the previous PPP government for bypassing the rules of business in the appointments of heads of public organizations. It was even successful in getting a couple of appointees removed by the Supreme Court (SC). In its judgment in the Asif Khwaja case, the SC has directed the government to appoint a commission to spearhead the process of filling the vacant posts of these organizations.

We do not know if Maryam deserved to be the chairperson PMYLP or not, since she had yet to prove her competence. We do know however that her appointment was made on the desire of the PM, which some commentators saw as an attempt to introduce her on the political stage and lay the foundations for a Sharif political dynasty. It goes without saying that this is not the appropriate way to run public organizations. Nepotism and making partisan political appointments has been one of the main reasons why many of Pakistan’s institutions and organizations have remained dysfunctional. Competence, merit and skills are often sacrificed to make room for family members, friends or close aides. The PML-N government motto has always been doing things on merit. On coming to power, it ran a series of advertising campaigns to appoint deserving and suitable persons for the public organizations. We have yet to see the fruits of any of those campaigns. Maryam has perhaps done a wise thing to resign, but PML-N has a lesson to learn here that it should immediately clean out all the appointments made on the basis of nepotism and refrain from making such appointments in future.