Proponents of administrative decentralization routinely attribute state failures to provincial incompetence, yet federal governance reveals an equally precarious structural deficit. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi recently remarked that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif works 14 to 16 hours a day, adding that if the surrounding administrative system were improved, the country’s governance outcomes could be dramatically better. There is nothing inherently flawed about a head of government maintaining a grueling schedule. In public administration, however, hours spent in briefings, inaugurations, and official engagements are not a proxy for effective governance.
Effective governance should ultimately be assessed by the functionality of constitutional institutions, the timeliness and quality of public decision-making, the effectiveness of federal-provincial coordination, the efficient and accountable use of public resources, and the state’s capacity to deliver measurable outcomes for citizens.
At its core, governance is an implicit social contract between the state and its people. Citizens pay taxes, from direct income levies to inflationary indirect taxes on basic goods, and in return, they deserve an efficient state that safeguards their fundamental constitutional rights, delivers quality public services, and manages public resources responsibly. Measured against these criteria, Pakistan’s federal government faces a profound institutional crisis.
Consider the Council of Common Interests (CCI), the primary constitutional mechanism designed to coordinate and balance relations within the federation. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif first assumed office in April 2022. By October 2026, over roughly 54 months spanning his two tenures, the Council has met a mere three times: its 50th meeting on August 5, 2023; its 51st on January 29, 2024; and its 52nd on April 28, 2025.
The Council of Common Interests is not a symbolic institution; its constitutional mandate places it at the centre of Pakistan’s federal structure, yet prolonged gaps between its meetings reveal a serious failure of institutional functioning.
This is not a minor administrative oversight; it is a clear failure to comply with the constitutional requirement. Article 154 of the Constitution explicitly mandates that the Council meet at least once every 90 days. Far from being a symbolic council, it is constitutionally empowered to formulate and regulate policies with respect to matters in Part II of the Federal Legislative List and exercise supervisory control over related institutions.
The weight of this institutional neglect becomes evident when reviewing the subjects under its domain: railways, natural gas, electricity and WAPDA, major ports, national economic coordination, public debt supervision, census-related matters, and inter-provincial coordination. These are not secondary affairs to be handled via routine ministerial correspondence; they form the structural core of Pakistan’s political economy and federal stability. Yet the gap between the 51st and 52nd meetings spanned 15 months, and since April 2025, the CCI has remained inactive.
This structural inertia extends directly into fiscal federalism. The National Finance Commission (NFC) is the constitutional mechanism designed to maintain financial balance between the federal government and the federating units. Article 160 provides for the constitution of the Commission at intervals not exceeding five years to recommend the distribution of federal tax revenue. The 7th NFC Award was finalized in 2009 and took effect in 2010. More than sixteen years later, no new award has replaced it.
The issue has now escalated to judicial scrutiny. On September 30, 2026, the Peshawar High Court directed the federal government to respond to a petition filed by former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra by November 11. The petition highlighted that ground realities have fundamentally changed since 2009, most notably through the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the completion of the 2017 and 2023 national population censuses.
While judicial determinations will clarify the legal boundaries of Article 160, the procedural challenge is already manifest. Demographics, expenditure obligations, and security costs have shifted, yet fiscal policy remains anchored to a decade-and-a-half-old blueprint.
The consequences of institutional drift are equally visible in the financial performance of state-owned enterprises. The Ministry of Finance’s aggregate report for FY2025 paints an alarming picture: federal state-owned enterprises accumulated gross operational losses of Rs832.8 billion during the year, yielding a net adjusted loss of Rs122.9 billion across the sector. To keep these entities afloat, direct federal support reached Rs2,078.5 billion, equivalent to approximately 16 percent of total federal tax receipts. The fiscal burden of these enterprises is substantial, with government support absorbing resources that could otherwise be allocated to other public priorities.
Compounding these structural challenges is the executive’s limited engagement with Parliament. The Prime Minister’s attendance in the National Assembly has remained relatively sparse, while his engagement with the Senate over roughly 54 months in office has also been limited or negligible. Regardless of the reasons for this pattern, sustained executive presence in Parliament is important for enabling direct parliamentary scrutiny, facilitating dialogue with legislators, and strengthening executive accountability.
This acute federal governance crisis cannot be reduced to the Prime Minister’s personal work ethic or cabinet reshuffles. The core defect is a system that continually mistakes hyper-activity for output, announcements for implementation, meetings for policy decisions, and policy decisions for actual results.
A mature and functioning state system does not require its head of government to personally manage micro-level administrative operations. It requires functional institutions operating under clear statutory mandates, professional management, verifiable metrics, and strict oversight. To address this governance challenge, the federal government must restore regular constitutional functioning, starting with regular CCI meetings and expediting the process for a new NFC Award.
The Constitution already provides the core machinery required to manage a complex federation: constitutional councils, financial commissions, Parliament, the Auditor General, and an established judicial and regulatory architecture. What is required is not the creation of additional bureaucracy, but the political discipline to let existing institutions function.
Good governance is demonstrated not by executive exhaustion at the top, but by institutions that function effectively, public resources that generate measurable value for the citizens who fund them, and a federation in which the provinces are treated as genuine constitutional partners. Pakistan’s national leadership must act to address this situation before another wave of breathless activity fades into another cycle of institutional decay.