After four years of the Awami League-led government, the civil administration has become unstable due to promotions against duty posts, bypassing seniority, tendency to post many competent officials as officers-on-special duty (OSDs), and non-implementation of recommendations of administrative reform committees. The pyramid structure of the country’s civil administration has been dismantled from the administrative system, according to public administration ministry sources.
Due to uncontrolled promotions, a total of 1,677 officials, with ranks of additional secretary, joint secretary, and deputy secretary, are in surplus in the civil administration, requesting the higher authorities for postings. They are also approaching the public administration ministry, the ministry’s joint secretary (appointment, posting and deputation), and its senior secretary. However, despite assurance, no posting has been approved so far.
A total of 70 secretaries and acting secretaries are now working against 73 duty posts, while 247 additional secretaries are working against 110 posts. A total of 622 joint secretaries are working in different ministries and divisions, against 341 sanctioned posts, while 1,665 deputy secretaries are working against the 828 sanctioned posts. At the same time, 1,433 senior assistant secretaries are working against 2,340 sanctioned posts and 903 assistant secretaries are working against 1,870 sanctioned posts in the civil administration.
So far, the government promoted about 1,700 officers to ranks such as deputy secretary, joint secretary, additional secretary, secretary and the senior secretary, in many cases bypassing seniority. It is also alleged that the public administration ministry did not promote a number of officials for harbouring pro-BNP-Jamaat sympathies.
The authorities have failed to recruit the required number of officials for the civil administration. In the past four years, only 1,000 administrative cadres have been appointed through the Public Service Commission (PSC). The government, however, has appointed a total of 10,146 Class-I officers through 28th to 32nd BSC exams conducted by the PSC, so far.
Following this massive promotion spree, most of the sections of different ministries and divisions are lying vacant. Senior assistant secretaries are working as section officers in different sections of ministries. The officials mainly prepare files and issue gazette notifications, after getting the files approved by higher authorities. A number of posts in the field are also lying vacant, due to shortage of officials.
According to sources, a total of 1,874 posts in sections of different ministries and divisions are lying vacant because of inadequate number of officials. As a result, the central and field administrations are becoming “stagnant”, causing acute suffering for the public.
Owing to rampant promotion, the public administration ministry is trying to absorb the officials, by assigning them to the same rooms of the ministries and divisions concerned.
However, the authorities have failed to absorb most of the officials. The authorities have also created 230 supernumerary posts, for accommodating the deputy secretaries.
As of May 11, the public administration ministry has made a total of 591 OSDs. Of them, two are secretaries, 41 additional secretaries, 130 joint secretaries, 159 deputy secretaries, 174 senior assistant secretaries, and 85 assistant secretaries. 170 officials with the ranks of deputy secretary, senior assistant secretary and assistant secretary have been made OSDs, due to study leave abroad.
It is also noteworthy that the authorities do not issue identity cards to the OSDs, who have to enter the secretariat, showing temporary pass from the home ministry.
After assuming power, the government initiated various reforms in the civil administration by enacting some new acts, including the proposed Civil Service Act, to protect the rights of the bureaucrats. The efforts, however, had been in vain, added the sources.
For developing a more dynamic administration, the government had formed a number of committees, such as, Anam Committee, Nurunnabi Committee, Shamsul Haque Committee, and Public Administration Reform Committee (PARC) of the World Bank. But the recommendations of these committees were not implemented.
In 2007, a Cabinet committee on Administrative Reform and Good Governance, headed by chief adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, took the initiative to reform the civil administration. However, bureaucratic tangles came in the way of implementing the reforms.
According to Abdus Sobhan Sikder, senior secretary of public administration ministry, the pyramid structure of the country’s civil administration had been creating problems in promotions and postings, due to mass recruitment since the early 1980s. “If no more than 200 officers, from a single BCS batch, were recruited, the present problem would not have arisen,” he said.
“We are trying to solve these problems by taking necessary steps, within eight years,” the senior secretary added. He also said that the public administration ministry was planning to give more promotions to the posts of deputy secretary, joint secretary, additional secretary and the secretary within the tenure of the government.
Former cabinet secretary Ali Imam Majumder said that the country’s democracy was becoming weak, due to unstable civil bureaucracy, which was the main pillar of democracy.
He said the government should stop giving promotions, except to those officials who were deprived of it. The government should implement the Shamsul Haque Commission report on reforms in the civil service, he added.
“The Fakruddin-led caretaker government (CG) took the initiative to implement the report, but they didn’t get the time to do it,” said Majumder who was also principal secretary to the chief adviser to the CG.
Dr Gowher Rizvi, foreign affairs adviser to the Prime Minister, earlier said that since independence, as many as 19 commissions had been set up on civil service reforms, but, to no avail. “Without a sound and efficient civil service system, a government can’t deliver social justice,” he said.
Dr Rizvi also opined that political interference in civil administration in terms of promotion, a regular feature of the administration, must be stopped and that due emphasis should be laid on meritocracy and performance, to develop an efficient institution.
“We also need to address the uncertainty plaguing the civil service,” he said, adding that “Civil servants have become pawns in the hands of different regimes, who abuse them for political gain.”
He further said, “The morale of civil servants is getting weaker nowadays.”
At a seminar held recently, Ghulam Rahman, chairman of the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC), said that prior to reforming the civil administration, the government should determine the roles of the politicians and the civil servants.
“At present, politicians are influencing the process of recruitment, transfer, posting and promotion of civil servants, and this has taken away much of the service’s glory,” said the retired secretary.
Abdus Sobhan Sikder said that they had carried out many reforms in the civil administration, for the past four years. “We are enacting the Public Service Act to protect officials and employees. The draft law is likely to be placed at the Cabinet meeting soon. We have started recruiting persons with disabilities, under the 1 per cent quota, and providing Tk. 20 lakh to the senior officials, to procure a car, without interest, under the welfare programme for civil services. We are also giving on-duty accident allowance of Tk. 5 lakh, to each official and employee,” he said.
He also said that they had implemented a performance-based annual confidential report (ACR) evaluation system, on pilot basis, to evaluate the performance of the officials under the reforms programme.
Courtesy of The Independent
