Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
Immediately after the independence of Bangladesh, the number of bureaucrats was 454450. In 1982 it was 779000. In 1992 and 1998 the figure stood at 946749 & 1045447 respectively.
At present the figure stands to 12 lakh and a half. But the figure is assumed to be 18 lakh by all government, semi Government and people serving in corporate bodies.
There remains the involvement of 20 percent budget expenditure for meeting their salary and allowances. People are not aware of the bureaucratic complexities.
Getting the dishonest pictures of the bureaucrats from media sources people have a bad notion towards them.
They think that bureaucrats are born to exploit the poor and make the rich richer. Bureaucrats make situations very clumsy and critical, very often possessing the negative attitude and mindset.
General people are being harassed and suffering a lot. Virtually they are the creators of discrimination in society.
Our politicians use them, direct them wrongfully. Bureaucrats in independent countries should maintain honesty, transparency and accountability. But it was far away from the beginning of our independence.
Rather, the past deposed Hasina government made it institutionalized. Several past committees submitted their report for reformation. That produced no effect. No pragmatic steps or measures have been taken so far. So our public servants are not pro-people. They consider themselves as masters or lords.
From the British Colonial Regime, they were not at all work friendly towards the interest of poor people. So misery of people is immense and beyond description.
According to UNDP and World Bank, Good Governance has eight principles/characteristics. These are: – Participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus oriented, equity, inclusiveness, effectiveness, efficiency and accountability.
The current situation shows that without effective leadership and good governance at all levels in private, public and civil organizations, it is arguably and virtually impossible to achieve effective administrative goals to sustain quality and deliver first-rating services.
There is a direct link between good governance, effective leadership, time management and economic prosperity. Managing changes in times must be emphasized and prioritized. Effective leadership and good governance are two sides of the same coin. Without effective leadership we may not envisage good governance in its totality.
In fact, good governance may not be achieved in its totality because of cultural, psychological, social and sociological impacts and differences.
Bureaucracy plays a dominant role in the development of the society and it is the cornerstone of modern society. The bureaucracy, in present Bangladesh originates from the bureaucracy in British India.
The bureaucracy in Bangladesh is repeatedly apparent with the issues of corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, lack of accountability and transparency, etc.
How does bureaucracy matter for development? Over the last years, an enormous interest in this question has created a large body of research, mostly focused around evidence from field experiments and micro-level administrative data. So bureaucracy needs to be reformed.
In this regard, the field administration should have a new set up for a short tenure. The post or appointment like DC and TNO should be changed. These names may have substituted as Upazila coordinating officer and District coordinating officer and they should belong to any efficient and effective cadre officials. Besides, the Upazila Parishad should have a setup of representatives coming from different political platforms. If the administration system is properly reformed, the country will achieve the desired goal and development will be ensured.
Public Service Commission has also been immersed to the deep sea of corruption during the regime of the past ousted government. It has turned to a nominal and casual institution. No transparency or no reformed activities were hardly practiced there. Showing extreme loyalty to authoritarian government is the custom and culture of the commission authority.
Commission has abused quota only to please the government’s desire, merit was less prioritized. Many anomalies had taken place in the name of politicizing the government’s political cadre. During Sheikh Hasina’s regime, a syndicated group inside PSC did many mischievous works like appointment pilferage and question paper leakage in collaboration with the outsiders.
By indulging with this unethical activity the involved officers, syndicated group had earned crores of taka. They made the institution a center for tradesman-ship and ultimately PSC was questioned. The function of PSC is only limited to management of BCS exam and recommendation for appointment as cadre officer.
PSC is supposed to conduct fair exam. formulate policy, and maintain its sanctity. Even this Institution should take the responsibility of officer’s promotion policy and look at the advantages and disadvantages of fresh appointments and promotion to higher posts. This Commission needs to be reformed for its future innovative activities.
Corruption news was being published from the media on irregularities of senior scale exam and default scrutiny of papers by the non-professional personnel, for which PSC was about to lose its dignity and image. That depicts the failure of the Chairman and concerned members.
The way the Election Commission was compelled to go for termination, the same preference should be followed by PSC also. Our PSC should be made a transparent and powerful autonomous Commission free from government’s interference and intervention. Administrative Reforms Commission and Public Service Commission Reforms are complements to each other.
Since the Public Service Commission is an established constitutional structural commission, the Administrative Reforms Commission may be set up with the same set up like PSC.
Mr. Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, the current head of the Administrative Reform Commission, is an honest, loyal, efficient and hardworking man. All the newly appointed members of his commission are officers of the administrative cadre. Are administrative reforms limited to the administrative cadre only? The field of administration is wide and extensive.
There is a strong presence of administration in medical service, engineering administration, technology administration, food administration, business administration, etc. Therefore, there is no scope to think that only the officers of the administration cadre have experienced and expert knowledge in this administrative reform committee. In such a situation, this commission may not be acceptable to civil society.
This committee may be biased towards the administration cadre. That’s what happened in the past.The monopoly inclusion will raise questions and it would create problems for their partisan role in the Commission. There are as many as 25 cadres who belong to different cadres of different professional bodies.
It is assumed that if the committee is balanced, it would work better and the committee would be feasible and vibrant and finally people’s expectation will be fulfilled.
(The author is a former Deputy Director General, Bangladesh Ansar and VDP, columnist and researcher.)