Shockingly, fourteen newborn babies died in a fire at PIMS Islamabad on August 26. They had entered perhaps the most protected space society can offer a human being: a hospital nursery. Yet the place meant to preserve their fragile lives became a deathtrap. There will now be an inquiry. Reports will be written. Someone may be suspended and perhaps dismissed. Committees will recommend improvements. Files will move from one office to another. Pakistan has seen this ritual before.

The deeper question is not merely what caused the fire. It is how a bureaucratic system capable of regulating almost everything can repeatedly fail at the one thing that ultimately matters: delivering results. Our public sector is obsessed with control. There are rules for procurement, maintenance, attendance, expenditure, recruitment and approval. Yet when a hospital must ensure that its fire systems work, emergency exits are usable, electrical equipment is safe and vulnerable patients can be evacuated, the impressive machinery of administrative control can suddenly prove astonishingly........

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