Draft public service law at \\\'final stage\\\'

International affairs adviser to Prime Minister Gowher Rizvi said on Sunday that the draft of the proposed public service law is at its final stage and will be placed in parliament soon.
The draft law includes provisions like granting civil servants security for a 10-year term and promotions on the basis of merit instead of seniority, he said while speaking at the inaugural session of a seminar at BRAC Centre Inn in the city.
The seminar styled "Good Governance in Bangladesh: An Agenda for the Future", was organised by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) with assistance from Canadian High Commission in Dhaka.
Canadian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Heather Cruden spoke at the session as special guest while BEI President Farooq Sobhan was in the chair.  
Gowher Rizvi said the Anti Corruption Commission Act 2013 will also be amended soon by the government to replace the provision that curbed ACC authority to file graft charges against the government officials, he said.
"These laws are being formulated to regulate foreign funding in the country through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and ensure more transparency," he added.
The draft of the law was completed through intensive consultation with people in public services, he stated.
The PM's adviser said such a law was supposed to be enacted long before as per constitution framed in 1972.
He informed that the new law is designed to raise professionalism of public servants who are rather politically inclined despite showing integrity in many other respects.
The adviser said the government would organise a fresh election at an appropriate time.
Mentioning foreign diplomats' call to hold fresh election, Gowher Rizvi said the call is creating instability that has been restored through the January 5 election.
High Commissioner Heather Cruden said both government and political leaders have an important role to play in delivering good governance.
Good governance requires honest and diligent work from political leaders, bureaucrats, independent institutions, civil society and the media, she said.
She said elections are only one part of democracy and "I believe that most Bangladeshis realise this."
The Canadian envoy said the January 5 elections left large part of the nation feeling disfranchised as 153 candidates were elected unopposed.
She forecasted that the peace and stability we are experiencing now may not last long.
The adviser said the values and characteristics crucial to democracy are often absent in our own.
He said media in the country ends up working for its owners and those who fund it -- so it fails to hold the government accountable because it reflects a very partial agenda.
"It focuses selectively on the interest of the owners or the parties that own it. So we need media that is truly independent", he said.
He said, "Unless we promote them as universal values applicable to all, it does not work. When it is simply applied to government it becomes a cliché and nobody buys it," he said.
He said research institutions, think tanks, intellectuals, and talk-show participants have an important part to play to hold the government accountable, but their impact has been limited so far.
He also held them responsible for being partisan when they criticise the government.
The Canadian envoy in her speech mentioned a recent poll conducted by the US-based International Republican Institute to back her case.
According to the poll, 61 per cent of those surveyed said the elections should be held within a year, 71 per cent think violence will get worse in the next year, and 59 per cent thought Bangladesh was on the wrong track.
Rizvi said what the country needs is respite from violence, what the county needs is stability, so that people can go back to work, lead their lives without being bombed, without being afraid of coming out of their homes, without losing livelihood.