Would the pay-rise ensure service delivery?
Zahurul Alam :
The government will supposedly take a positive, from civil servant point of view, decision of increasing public servants’ salaries and benefits to a considerable extent in near future. This increase will cost around some 20000 crore taka per year sourced from revenue earned from tax payers’ money. Mentionably, with this amount Bangladesh could build huge multipurpose bridges, such as Padma Bridge each year.
Having given above introduction we confirm that we appreciate such decision because of many known factors. The people will pay salaries and all other benefits to the civil servants, because they are recruited to serve the people and they need to be paid up to their satisfaction and by our national standards.
In return, people would expect good services from the people’s servants and their designated offices. People would like to see appropriate level of responsiveness from the employees and the bureaucratic machinery to the needs of the tax payers. The tax payers would love to see that their hard earned resources are used judiciously at their interest and that all government offices are duly accountable to the tax payers. The government offices, the people will see, function transparently, all relevant discloses are made in time and disseminated to the public via websites and other media; the people have instant access to those and other needed information. People want to participate in the review of those reports and information and contribute to those and believe that their suggestions would be considered seriously by the bureaucratic machinery and the people’s representatives will proactively guide the civil servants to be accountable, transparent and responsive in their work.
In building a prosperous nation and attaining ‘Vision 2021’, the civil servants will contribute proactively and refrain from corrupt practices, not only in terms of rent seeking, but also maintaining disciplines. They should be in their respective offices in time in the morning and be engaged in their work till the end of the working day. Their quality of work should justify their payment from the internal revenue earning. The people, in return will allow their leave and vacations, and many other facilities.
The people of Bangladesh are extremely happy and honored that the overwhelming majority of our civil servants are honest and are not rent seekers. They have joined the public service with noble purpose: ‘to serve the people’, not to accumulate resources and become rich. None of them join the talk shows just to talk about good governance. Those who join public shows in the media to talk about good governance and many other issues of national interest certainly have established good governance in their own ministries while in power as policy makers, and we the people are enjoying the fruits of their valuable contributions. If there is any evidence that someone has failed to do that even in his small circle, he certainly has the moral standard not to speak about those matters which he failed to do.
The policy makers will prevent all corrupt practices at their offices. They will use people’s offices to penalize the offences against the people and the state, certainly not suppress those under the banner of ‘Departmental Actions’, which often places the offenders in better places with greater scopes for corrupt practices.
The public resources that will be invested for the salaries, bonuses, pensions, trainings, foreign visits, medical and other allowances, transport, housing, office, support staff and so on will gladly be given by the people of Bangladesh now and in future, even greater amounts, with the assurance that none will be harassed by the public servants under any pretext, there will be no delays in the delivery of legitimate services to the citizens of the country, no pensioner will have to visit government offices to obtain their legitimate services several times and not experience rumors about evaporation of personal files of any other document and get those back after illegal payments. People of the country would not like that they are compelled to bribe for services and Bangladesh is branded as corrupt country not because the people have the habit of bribing, but they are under compulsion in all cases, irrespective of nature and time of the work.
The people believe that the civil servants would be able to conceive whole heartedly and honor the prime Minister’s mention about ‘serving the people, not making own fate out of their miseries.’
(Zahurul Alam Ph.D is President, Governance and Rights Centre (GRC), E-mail: zalam111@yahoo.com)
The government will supposedly take a positive, from civil servant point of view, decision of increasing public servants’ salaries and benefits to a considerable extent in near future. This increase will cost around some 20000 crore taka per year sourced from revenue earned from tax payers’ money. Mentionably, with this amount Bangladesh could build huge multipurpose bridges, such as Padma Bridge each year.
Having given above introduction we confirm that we appreciate such decision because of many known factors. The people will pay salaries and all other benefits to the civil servants, because they are recruited to serve the people and they need to be paid up to their satisfaction and by our national standards.
In return, people would expect good services from the people’s servants and their designated offices. People would like to see appropriate level of responsiveness from the employees and the bureaucratic machinery to the needs of the tax payers. The tax payers would love to see that their hard earned resources are used judiciously at their interest and that all government offices are duly accountable to the tax payers. The government offices, the people will see, function transparently, all relevant discloses are made in time and disseminated to the public via websites and other media; the people have instant access to those and other needed information. People want to participate in the review of those reports and information and contribute to those and believe that their suggestions would be considered seriously by the bureaucratic machinery and the people’s representatives will proactively guide the civil servants to be accountable, transparent and responsive in their work.
In building a prosperous nation and attaining ‘Vision 2021’, the civil servants will contribute proactively and refrain from corrupt practices, not only in terms of rent seeking, but also maintaining disciplines. They should be in their respective offices in time in the morning and be engaged in their work till the end of the working day. Their quality of work should justify their payment from the internal revenue earning. The people, in return will allow their leave and vacations, and many other facilities.
The people of Bangladesh are extremely happy and honored that the overwhelming majority of our civil servants are honest and are not rent seekers. They have joined the public service with noble purpose: ‘to serve the people’, not to accumulate resources and become rich. None of them join the talk shows just to talk about good governance. Those who join public shows in the media to talk about good governance and many other issues of national interest certainly have established good governance in their own ministries while in power as policy makers, and we the people are enjoying the fruits of their valuable contributions. If there is any evidence that someone has failed to do that even in his small circle, he certainly has the moral standard not to speak about those matters which he failed to do.
The policy makers will prevent all corrupt practices at their offices. They will use people’s offices to penalize the offences against the people and the state, certainly not suppress those under the banner of ‘Departmental Actions’, which often places the offenders in better places with greater scopes for corrupt practices.
The public resources that will be invested for the salaries, bonuses, pensions, trainings, foreign visits, medical and other allowances, transport, housing, office, support staff and so on will gladly be given by the people of Bangladesh now and in future, even greater amounts, with the assurance that none will be harassed by the public servants under any pretext, there will be no delays in the delivery of legitimate services to the citizens of the country, no pensioner will have to visit government offices to obtain their legitimate services several times and not experience rumors about evaporation of personal files of any other document and get those back after illegal payments. People of the country would not like that they are compelled to bribe for services and Bangladesh is branded as corrupt country not because the people have the habit of bribing, but they are under compulsion in all cases, irrespective of nature and time of the work.
The people believe that the civil servants would be able to conceive whole heartedly and honor the prime Minister’s mention about ‘serving the people, not making own fate out of their miseries.’
(Zahurul Alam Ph.D is President, Governance and Rights Centre (GRC), E-mail: zalam111@yahoo.com)
