Establishing a dynamic bureaucracy

Bureaucracy did not get dynamism after two years in office of the present government. In line with its 'Vision 2021' the government did not implement its election pledges by making public administration dynamic, efficient, and free from corruption and politicisation. Many efficient and brilliant officers have been made OSDs due to political reasons. Ensuring good governance, making administration politicisation free, evaluating competency, impartial and merit based recruitment and promotion, transfer on genuine ground, ensuring right to information, introducing e-governance, setting up a permanent pay scale for government servants, and above all bringing reforms in the administration were some of the main election pledges of the incumbents. But the government after winning the election did not take any tangible measures to implement these goals. The Prime Minister has repeatedly expressed her dissatisfaction with the existing inefficiency and slothful public administration. For establishing right to information, the government did not recruit information officers in every ministry. The Prime Minister's office as well as the Cabinet Division has issued letters many times to the officials of different ministries for increasing dynamism in bureaucracy. Lack of co-ordination stands as the main obstacle for this snail pace of the administration. As a result, chain of command in administration has been broken. Annual Development Plan and other development projects of the government are not being implemented rapidly as some bureaucrats are not obeying instructions of the ministers. Existing rules and regulations are being ignored for the expected promotion of the government employees. Competent and meritorious officials continue to remain OSDs while contractual recruitments are increasing. All these are making the administration ineffective. Politicisation of administration is another hindrance to making administration dynamic. Incident at Pabna is a bright example in this regard. The chief of the Human Rights Commission considers bureaucracy and red tape as the main obstacles in the implementation the government's promised changes. Actually, the government would need efficient human resources, mainly bureaucrats, to fulfill its promises. But it does not have such a workforce. There are some reactionary elements within the bureaucracy and these elements will have to be identified and removed if the government wishes to fulfill its promises. We have to consider the course of action that may be undertaken to make the bureaucracy dynamic and corruption-free as far as practicable. Above all, change must be brought in by sacking or sending dishonest public officials to retirement, and promoting and recruiting honest personnel now and in the future. Recruitment of public servants will have to be ensured on the basis of inherent merit and honesty. While considering promotion of officials, merit and dynamism in work in the bureaucracy must also be considered. This can be ensured through intensive scrutiny. Those who are honest should be rewarded and the dishonest persons dismissed immediately. Dishonest officials must not be retained in the bureaucracy. Above all, making bureaucracy dynamic, corruption free, and the removal of lethargic and dishonest officers in the bureaucracy lies in the hands of vigilant leadership of politicians, the legislature and the executive heads of government. We hope the government will take pragmatic steps in making bureaucracy dynamic and corruption free within the present government's remaining three years of tenure and, thus, ensure good governance. .............................................. The writer can be reached at E-mail: mail:mlutforr@ovi.com