MANAGEMENT 2010 LOOKING FORWARD

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ISLAMABAD 002641 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/EX AND M E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: AMGT KICA PK SUBJECT: MANAGEMENT 2010 LOOKING FORWARD Ref: Islamabad 2080 Sensitive But Unclassified ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Mission Pakistan's Management Section evaluated its goals and objectives, to determine how best to direct its efforts over the coming year. This cable summarizes the mission environment as it relates to management services, and lays out what we hope to achieve in the coming year. To support the Mission's growing population, we are consolidating administrative support structures, reorganizing and expanding staffing to support our projected population in 2011, and implementing new approaches to share information and to manage critical constraints such as TDY lodging and armored vehicles. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Mission Pakistan has changed dramatically in the last few years with the President, Congress, and the Department position that Pakistan is key to stability in the region and success in our goals in Afghanistan. The Kerry-Lugar Bill will ramp up non-military assistance to $7.5 billion over the next five years, expanding on our recent emphasis of military assistance. Official Mission Pakistan personnel growth continues to be dramatic. Once a large mission of about 250 US Direct Hires, we are now 657 US Direct Hire strong with hundreds of "permanent" TDY personnel. Building plans, at various stages in all four cities, will exceed $1 billion. Management and ICASS needs to catch up its infrastructure growth to meet the demands of the increase in Mission size. -------------- Who We Support -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The Mission supports a wide variety of DoD's military interests in both Pakistan and Afghanistan in its execution of $1 billion in annual assistance funding to the Pakistani military for counter insurgency efforts. We also support an average of 350 MilAir lift transit flights through our corridor each day, and process about 1,800 containers each week through the port of Karachi and onward to Afghanistan overland. The U.S. military's presence in Pakistan is approximately 225 long-term (over six months) personnel and growing. ¶4. (U) USAID's developmental assistance program is now estimated to be $1.5 billion a year. USAID's personnel numbers have grown accordingly, and now stand at about 136 employees and 30 long term TDYers. All of these numbers continue to grow. State's assistance funding is mostly provided through INL and DS funding. It now 
totals $150 million, and is directed at increasing the capabilities of the Pakistani law enforcement activities. NAS currently employs 10 US Direct Hires and 30 contractors, and maintains an air wing in Quetta with 3 fixed wing assets and 14 helicopters. ¶5. (SBU) State personnel resources have grown as well, with about 368 fulltime personnel in the country. This number includes 44 of the 126 additional State positions requested in the August 2009 "Blue Skies Initiative" (reftel). In addition, there are about 200 State TDYers constantly in country. ¶6. (U) We consistently brief visiting VIPs that while Pakistan is part of the "Big Three" (with Iraq and Afghanistan),there are huge contrasts in our operational environment. The Government of Pakistan is a mature, functioning bureaucracy. It limits many of the operational requirements of this Mission, a point of which they often remind us, in word and deed. Diplomatic procedures are completely different than Iraq and Afghanistan. We often find that people want to bring to us Iraq/Afghanistan-style solutions to challenges that do not exist, or at least have different solutions, here in Pakistan. -------------- Management Goals -------------- ¶7. (U) With the Mission largely dependent on U.S. staff on one year assignments, good accountability suggests we establish goals for now through Summer 2010. Our goals for fiscal year 2010 are: a. (U) Manage our growth. Build management processes and an infrastructure by Summer 2010 that will support the Mission's expected population in Summer 2011. b. (U) Ensure that we maintain Mission Pakistan as "normal" as possible. While we cannot change the security environment, we can control the quality of our clients' working and living conditions. We need to ensure that we keep conditions at the mission as "normal" as possible, so we can attract strong bidders and avoid the trap of managing to other war-footing missions' inescapable restrictions. ISLAMABAD 00002641 002 OF 004 c. (U) Manage the message, to the Department, our VIP visitors, and our clients. In such a dynamic and high visibility atmosphere, it is important that decision makers have an accurate picture of our situation and issues. d. (U) Overcome our continuity problem. With a one year posting, we need to establish active methodologies to ensure arriving officers are well informed and not reinventing solutions and methods. -------------- Management Strategies -------------- ¶8. (U) Management Workforce: The Mission currently has 16 ICASS US Direct Hires and 7 program positions in Communications/Systems, roughly the same number as in 2006. We will receive our first new ICASS USDH in late October 2009, and the Department is creating as many as 6 new US Direct Hire positions as a result of our "Blue Skies Initiative". We have been more successful in increasing LES staff in the Management Section, adding 187 LES positions in late FY2009. It generally takes six months to get an LES security clearance, so most of these positions remain unfilled. We have about 1000 LES ICASS staff. a. (U) The Department has supplemented our strength with generous TDY support. While very welcome, it underscores the need to increase permanent FTE to build a sustainable management infrastructure. Our ratio of USDH service providers to Americans serviced in 2009 is the lowest in the SCA bureau at .037, fifty percent below the average ratio at SCA posts. b. (U) Our current ratio of LE ICASS staff to Americans serviced is 1.5, 40 percent below the SCA average. We already have plans to add 187 LE staff, a 29 percent increase. In September 2009, we undertook a complete, bottom-up review of our management organization to ensure that we place the added LE staff into organizational structures that make sense for the future. We developed a new organizational chart for each management section. ¶9. (U) Managing Growth: The explosive growth in the last few years of DoD, USAID, and certain components of State occurred out of sync with the appropriate strengthening of the management platform. We are working to shape the entire logistical format of this Mission in all four cities, and retrofit many of the management systems and structures so that the Mission grows appropriately. This includes establishing furniture/appliance/generators pools, rightsizing dedicated vehicle allocations with corresponding growth in the shared (ICASS) motorpools, combining scattered procurement and position classification functions, and minimizing duplicative administrative support structures by closely reviewing the need for every non-ICASS administrative position addition (USDH and LES). ¶10. (SBU) Armored Vehicles: The GOP severely restricts the importation of Armored Vehicles (AVs),and has established an "authorization" of 1 AV for every 4 Direct Hires at post. We are currently at about 3 times our "authorization", and over the past 3 years the few vehicles that the GOP Customs allowed to be cleared has been as the result of a direct appeal by the Ambassador. These appeals have often times not been successful and demurrage fees for vehicles awaiting clearance can exceed several hundred thousand dollars per year. a. (U) Individual agencies have purchased ARs, which stack up in Customs, without overall Mission planning. Agencies have developed their own motorpool fleets rather than maximize the use of a shared service (ICASS motorpools). The Mission now faces an increasingly difficult situation as each agency wants more vehicles. b. (U) We will continue to request that the GOP waive the 25% AR limit, as they have in practice for other diplomatic missions. c. (U) Barring a change in the importation limits, management is examining whether to assign each agency a set number of dedicated ARs for operational requirements that are not typical of pooled operations. This will compel agencies to better utilize the motorpool for normal motorpool functions, thus maximizing the use of the limited number of vehicles the Mission is allowed to import. ¶11. (U) Housing: We have been able to keep up with the fast growing demands for housing. It has required us to use group housing in many situations, such as for ODRP, SOCCE, contractors, and others coming as an operational group (OIG, OBO, DART, etc). Between June 1 and September 30, we turned over about 80% of our existing housing pool and obtained 45 new housing units. We now have 315 housing units. ISLAMABAD 00002641 003 OF 004 (U) We believe that we can continue to meet the Mission's housing needs in this manner. We strongly believe that it is in the US Government's interests to do so, in order to keep the post differential relatively low, bid numbers high, and to offer some relief to personnel from the strain of work demands. ¶12. (SBU) TDY Support: The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in March 2008 changed TDY management at post. In August we had a "soft" opening of our Phase I TDY pods of 70 rooms, and have recently opened all 125 units. This week, we hosted about 85 TDYer and press guests who came with the Secretary's visit together with about 70 longer term residents. These are allocated 75% to RAO for long term TDYers, and the remainder to ICASS for short term TDYers with State having preference. The next phase (64 units) should break ground in November 2009. We also maintain seven TDY houses in the community in Islamabad, and one in Lahore (adding two more in Lahore soon). Each averages 5 bedrooms. Islamabad also has 2 "VIP" apartments on the compound. To minimize the impact on ICASS resources, our employee association manages these units. (U) Last year we collected $450,000 in ICASS TDY invoices, thought to be the highest in the world. This reflects our large TDY presence and over $500,000 in partial year invoices reflects our growth plane. ¶13. (U) Building Projects: Islamabad: OBO has an Islamabad Master Plan that includes the construction of temporary and permanent buildings estimated at $1 billion total, with a land purchase of 18 acres. To date, a 125 unit TDY trailer quarter and safehaven recreational center has been completed, a 50 person temporary USAID building has been initiated, and a contract has been let for a 64-unit TDY trailer facility. a. (U) Peshawar: OBO intends to buy a property in Peshawar that will provide adequate, secure living and working space. The recent plan to purchase the PC Hotel was terminated as the GOP would not allow us to buy this property. There are several security projects underway for the current building. b. (U) Lahore: OBO plans to purchase land to either increase the current location's footprint, or procure a site to build a new consulate building or to build a secondary egress from the current building. c. (U) Karachi: A new NCC will be completed in Summer 2010. We need to develop a new plan with OBO to meet growth demands for office space and beds not included in the NCC plan. ¶14. (SBU) Managing the Outside: A great deal of management effort is spent managing others. This includes working with the MFA and Ministry of Interior on bilateral relations and support issues. Another key component is VIP Management, both in terms of their logistical support (for which a Mission Visitors Section was created in May 2009) as well as ensuring that visiting interlocutors understand Management perspective. ¶15. (U) Managing Knowledge: To strengthen our institutional memory and enhance our collaboration, we are launching a Team Pakistan Sharepoint site in Opennet and a Team Pakistan blog on Intelink. To improve our communication with ICASS customers and better track our service performance, we are implementing eServices. -------------- Conclusion -------------- ¶16. (U) The Mission's growth, as often happens, has not been in lock step between the clients and the service providers. The Management Section has a great deal of catching up to do in order to meet current requirements. But given the long lead times in bringing US Direct Hires to Pakistan as well as the lead time to build and train LES staff, we must look two years down the line to see what structure and people we need now. That effort has begun. Between now and Summer 2010 we hope to have the structure largely built. In the meantime, we will continue to rely heavily on TDY support, as well as an extraordinary amount of overtime and commitment. ¶17. (U) We will also make the hard decisions and implement the hard practices of actively avoiding the institution of multiple service providers and agency-specific administrative services. ¶18. (U) We will continue to actively engage the Pakistanis to attempt to gain their cooperation on land and building issues, visa issues, armored vehicle importation, and other issues where lack of agreement hinders our mission. ISLAMABAD 00002641 004 OF 004 ¶19. (U) Our Mission in Pakistan has high visibility in the US Government. The work we do is as rewarding as any that officers will do in their career. Living conditions, while not easy, are far better than those offered by other such high-focus postings. Our goal of making Islamabad an attractive posting will require that we maintain adequate housing, reduce overtime, and bring more normalcy and quality to our processes. We will measure our success by the number of employees opting to stay for a second year. PATTERSON