Lobbyists pose security problems
Visitors, known as “lobbyists”, are thronging the Secretariat, the country’s administrative nerve-centre, before Eid-ul-Fitr to ensure that their pending jobs are completed. But this is making it difficult for the officials to park their cars properly and, at times, to even perform their duties.
The lobbyists are swarming the corridors and rooms of the officials, urging them to ensure that their files move quickly. They are also responsible for causing security hazards in the administrative hub.
There is a sudden rush of visitors who identify themselves as leaders and activists of the ruling party and enter with their cars without the Secretariat’s special entry stickers. They have also occupied the spaces reserved for high-ranking officials and even the ministers, causing such a logjam that they cannot move out after 3.30pm.
Allegations have been levelled that the “visitors” enter the Secretariat by bribing a section of law enforcement personnel and intelligence staff, who are supposed to ensure security for the Secretariat.
Some officials and employees of the ministers and the state ministers—even a section of high-ranking officials of the Secretariat—collude with the lobbyists, who enter the protected building by obtaining entry passes from them. They even badger the top bureaucrats of the rank of joint secretary and above to issue entry passes to them, using the reference of the ministers concerned.
At least 2,000 visitors and over 1,500 vehicles enter the Secretariat every day. Of the 1,500 vehicles, 400 to 500 have no vehicle entry stickers of 2013 or use old stickers, sources in the home ministry disclosed.
In an order issued on June 28, the home ministry has directed the security personnel of the Secretariat not to allow visitors’ vehicles without the vehicle entry stickers of 2013. But over 400 unauthorised vehicles are entering the Secretariat every day by “managing” the security personnel.
Since last week, a number of high officials of different ministries, even some private secretaries of ministers and state ministers, complained to the home ministry that they could not move their cars after office time due to vehicular traffic snarls at the Secretariat.
Additional secretary to the home minister, Md Shafiqul Islam, told The Independent that the lobbyists bothered them every day, urging them to issue entry passes and vehicle entry stickers to the visitors.
“We cannot issue entry passes and vehicle entry stickers to all the visitors,” he explained.
“We have already asked the taskforce to conduct special drives by mobile courts for seizing the unauthorised vehicles and arrest those visitors who enter without entry passes,” he said.
The official also said they had asked the commissioner of the government vehicle pool to take steps to ensure that over 150 cars of the officials could be parked in the basement parking lot.
“At the same time, we have asked the ministry of works to extend the parking lot of the Secretariat,” he said.
Sources said the home ministry has so far issued a total of 1,175 vehicle entry stickers of 2013 to various applicants. In 2011 and 2012, it had issued around 3,500 stickers to top officials, ministers and privileged persons for entering the Secretariat.
Since December 2012, the authorities have launched operations with vehicle scanning machines and explosive vapour to scan the vehicles of ministers and senior government officials before these enter the Secretariat.
Personnel of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Special Branch (SB) of police operate the digital devices, which are aimed at stopping unauthorised visitors and vehicles, as well as to prevent possible terrorist or militant attacks on the administrative hub.
Besides, members of different intelligence agencies search every official and visitor with luggage scanners, archways, metal detectors and mirror detectors at Gates 2, 4 and 5 of the Secretariat.
During the tenure of the BNP-led four-party alliance government, 162 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras had been installed on the premises of the Secretariat and nine sub-control rooms and a central control room were set up to monitor security arrangements round-the-clock. However, most of the CCTV cameras had become defunct, officials added.
Sources said the home ministry had asked law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take steps to bar the entry of vehicles with tinted glasses to the Secretariat during office hours as a precautionary measure. It has been alleged that most of the vehicles with tinted glasses belong to lawmakers of the ruling party.
Corruption is also a matter of concern for security officials as some unscrupulous employees in different ministries have been found selling entry passes to the high-security complex.
According to the sources, the home ministry has issued over 5,000 temporary gate passes to freedom fighters, upazila chairmen, mayors, retired government officials and businessmen.
-With The Independent input
