Administration is yet to become professional, transparent
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Shamsher Chowdhury
What this government needs most today is enhanced level of professionalism, transparency of its operations and improvement of its records on human rights violations. One of the major weaknesses of the ruling party is that nearly all of its actions are, if not anything else, ill-conceived.
Right from the start, the interventions of the government have been ill-conceived, ill-planned and poorly executed. Starting from the planning of energy and power generation to fixing of DST including operating hours for the schools, it is all a story that reflects poorly on the management capacity of the regime. The entire administration is highly centralised. History has it that absolute power has never yielded any benefit to either the ruler or the ruled. This helps, instead, build a psyche in the minds of those who are entrusted with the responsibility of executing directives and decisions at the ground level who have neither any responsibility nor accountability.
The ruling party must realise that good intentions and lofty programmes may fall through if not dealt with in a transparent manner. In this regard, it is important to note that at all times major projects and programmes undertaken must reflect people's interests. To be honest, there is apprehension amongst the people in general that something is wrong with power and energy contracts. The revising of time-tested and traditional terms of international contracts has raised many a question in the minds of the people and the international donor agencies. It has often been alleged that these changes are manipulative and likely to lead to graft and corruption.
In this context, one could also cite the example of rehabilitation projects like the one concerned with the rehabilitation of the Aila victims. Considering the size of the projects and the funds involved one wonders as to why it is taking such a long time to mitigate the sufferings of the victims. Bangladesh happens to be one of the most experienced countries in disaster management and hence the matter should have been dealt with more efficiently and in a transparent manner. We have received considerable funds from abroad and considerable funds were also raised internally. Therefore, one is likely to ask as to what is the story behind the story? On a different plane, without going into details, it is quite evident that handling of investigations and the trial processes of crimes of all nature are far from transparent.
Not only this government but none of the past governments have been democratic in the real sense of the term. Most major decisions are made and executed in the style and manner like it is done in the Darbar of a king and his courtiers. How can you be democratic when you don't practise democracy in-house? One could write volumes about the undemocratic character of this regime or the previous ones. Very often you get to hear of allegations levelled against the present government of interfering in the freedom of the judiciary. Besides, one of the universally accepted parameters of a democratic state happens to be the media. To put it bluntly, the media today is under a greater threat than any time before. One might be misled by the numbers of our media outlets in terms of the number of newspapers being published or the number of channels in the electronic media. What we mean is the gagging of voices of dissent and exposition of free and frank opinions representing the public at large.
One of the major problems with this government is that it is a top-down management approach that does not seem to go down well either with the local administration or the public at large. In the process, a gap has been created between the central administrative authority at the very top located at the capital city and the public and the local-level administration. Besides, matters are farther complicated by the so-called advisors and many of the lawmakers too close to the seat of power pursuing their own personal agenda. Rightly or wrongly, the present government has also spent considerable time in aligning and realigning of our history and heritage that left too many pressing issues of public interest unattended. The ruling party has spent too much of its valuable time in non-productive politics and politicking. At times it has been difficult to distinguish as to which is the opposition party and which one is the ruling party.
(E-mail:
chowdhury.shamsher@yahoo.com)
What this government needs most today is enhanced level of professionalism, transparency of its operations and improvement of its records on human rights violations. One of the major weaknesses of the ruling party is that nearly all of its actions are, if not anything else, ill-conceived.
Right from the start, the interventions of the government have been ill-conceived, ill-planned and poorly executed. Starting from the planning of energy and power generation to fixing of DST including operating hours for the schools, it is all a story that reflects poorly on the management capacity of the regime. The entire administration is highly centralised. History has it that absolute power has never yielded any benefit to either the ruler or the ruled. This helps, instead, build a psyche in the minds of those who are entrusted with the responsibility of executing directives and decisions at the ground level who have neither any responsibility nor accountability.
The ruling party must realise that good intentions and lofty programmes may fall through if not dealt with in a transparent manner. In this regard, it is important to note that at all times major projects and programmes undertaken must reflect people's interests. To be honest, there is apprehension amongst the people in general that something is wrong with power and energy contracts. The revising of time-tested and traditional terms of international contracts has raised many a question in the minds of the people and the international donor agencies. It has often been alleged that these changes are manipulative and likely to lead to graft and corruption.
In this context, one could also cite the example of rehabilitation projects like the one concerned with the rehabilitation of the Aila victims. Considering the size of the projects and the funds involved one wonders as to why it is taking such a long time to mitigate the sufferings of the victims. Bangladesh happens to be one of the most experienced countries in disaster management and hence the matter should have been dealt with more efficiently and in a transparent manner. We have received considerable funds from abroad and considerable funds were also raised internally. Therefore, one is likely to ask as to what is the story behind the story? On a different plane, without going into details, it is quite evident that handling of investigations and the trial processes of crimes of all nature are far from transparent.
Not only this government but none of the past governments have been democratic in the real sense of the term. Most major decisions are made and executed in the style and manner like it is done in the Darbar of a king and his courtiers. How can you be democratic when you don't practise democracy in-house? One could write volumes about the undemocratic character of this regime or the previous ones. Very often you get to hear of allegations levelled against the present government of interfering in the freedom of the judiciary. Besides, one of the universally accepted parameters of a democratic state happens to be the media. To put it bluntly, the media today is under a greater threat than any time before. One might be misled by the numbers of our media outlets in terms of the number of newspapers being published or the number of channels in the electronic media. What we mean is the gagging of voices of dissent and exposition of free and frank opinions representing the public at large.
One of the major problems with this government is that it is a top-down management approach that does not seem to go down well either with the local administration or the public at large. In the process, a gap has been created between the central administrative authority at the very top located at the capital city and the public and the local-level administration. Besides, matters are farther complicated by the so-called advisors and many of the lawmakers too close to the seat of power pursuing their own personal agenda. Rightly or wrongly, the present government has also spent considerable time in aligning and realigning of our history and heritage that left too many pressing issues of public interest unattended. The ruling party has spent too much of its valuable time in non-productive politics and politicking. At times it has been difficult to distinguish as to which is the opposition party and which one is the ruling party.
(E-mail:
chowdhury.shamsher@yahoo.com)