Imran Khan Admits Failure in Bringing Change in Pak, Blames 'Faults in System'

He said this during a ceremony in which the top 10 best performing ministries were being awarded certificates.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

(Photo: Twitter/@ImranKhanPTI)

While addressing a ceremony in which the top 10 best performing ministries and divisions of the government were being awarded certificates, the prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, admitted that he had been unable to bring about the "change" in the country that he had promised when he took office, English-language the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported.

Khan, however, blamed the "faults" in the system for his failure.

"In the beginning we wanted to bring change immediately through revolutionary steps, but later realised that our system was incapable of absorbing shock," he said.

He went on to say that there was "no connection between the government and the interest of the country."

The "interests of the country", according to the prime minister, were "increasing exports, finding import substitution and alleviating poverty."

The names of high profile members of Khan's cabinet like Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Information Technology Minister Syed Aminul Haq did not make the top 10 list.

When Fawad Chaudhry was questioned by Dawn regarding reports about some ministers expressing dismay about the performance of their ministries being ignored, he said that he was unaware of any such ministers.

The criteria to judge the performance of ministries was based on the number of projects that were completed in time as well as the amount of revenue generated by the ministries.

The ministries that were awarded certificates for their performance, as listed in the Dawn report, were:

• Ministry of Communications

• Ministry of Planning

• Development and Special Initiatives

• Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division

• Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training

• Ministry of Human Rights

• Ministry of Industries and Production

• National Security Division

• Ministry of Commerce

• Ministry of Interior

• Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

Khan said that he has planned a quarterly review of the performance of ministries to incentivise them to function better.

Developing a sense of competition among them, he said, would make ensure that they would try to provide the best results possible.

The prime minister further added that 1,090 targets had been set by the ministries.

More than 400 of those would be achieved this year, including 207 governance related targets and 100 infrastructure related targets.

(With inputs from Dawn)