High cost of politicisation of administration

It is usually observed in Bangladesh that the political governments prefer to recruit, promote and utilise cadre-service people to serve their political purposes though such employees are actually supposed to serve the interest of the Republic. This leads the politically grateful cadre-service employees to be more loyal to the governments than to the Republic. Thus the bureaucracy turns politicised and, as a result, with the change of government a section of the bureaucracy suffers.   
But in the context of Bangladesh, the role of bureaucracy should be critically reviewed and the political governments should give importance to merit, loyalty to the interests of the republic and not to the political interests of the political governments. If the supremacy of merit is not established, the meritorious boys and girls will not be attracted to the cadre service. It has already been observed that the meritorious boys and girls are opting for corporate jobs and they hardly vie for cadre services. They know that even during the recruitment by the public service commission, political considerations get priority; merit is set aside and pushed to the wings.
As a result, Bangladesh's bureaucracy remains inefficient, corrupt and goes for rent-seeking due to politicisation of the administration. Competent people are not given proper responsibility. So, the administration suffers and governance remains poor. But the fact remains that the country's quest for higher growth is unlikely to be achieved unless investment in public and private sectors is raised to a satisfactory level by establishing good governance.  
It is reported that the present government has been paying salary and other benefits to 400 high officials who are left with no, work. They are all officers on special duty, popularly known as OSD. These cadre officers enjoy the rank of additional secretary, joint secretary and deputy secretary. The common taxpayers' money is squandered from the public exchequer in paying these officers without doing any work.
Out of 400 officers 150 are now wasting their time and sitting idle because of their political identity. It is unheard of in any country that such a large number of high-paid high officials are not given any duty to perform due to doubtful political loyalty to the past political government although they regularly draw salary. This is the result of politicisation of Bangladesh administration; and this is the political cost paid by the republic's common taxpayers.  
This is exactly what has been happening in our country for long. The administration is heavily politicised and efficient officers who served the past political governments are marginalised and pushed to wings. This is a cumulative process in Bangladesh public administration. The loyalists to the ruling government's political interests, even if inefficient, are given important job and promotion. Such practices result in poor governance which is presently reflected in deteriorating law-and-order situation in the country and low investment and huge national loss as the efficient and experienced officers are kept idle for years.
Not only investment in different sectors of the economy but the maintenance of law and order, management of over-all delivery system, management of the whole supply chain depend on an efficient bureaucracy. That is why bureaucracy is often called world over meritocracy. Unfortunately, when the bureaucracy is politicised, merit is compromised in recruitment, work distribution and promotion, as we see in Bangladesh. The result is that the governance suffers, as we see now in our country and have seen before. As a result, poor governance and low level of delivery of services to the citizens of the republic continue for years during all successive political governments.  
This is also the reason why bureaucracy is getting inefficient over the years in the country. The officers who are now holding important positions in this government are scared that with the change of the regime they will be penalised. Evidences are there that with the change of the regime most important victims are private secretaries of the ministers, deputy commissioners and high police officials. Even the Foreign Service officials are victimised.
This culture must change in the interest of the republic. If this evil culture is not changed and stopped, meritorious people will not join the bureaucracy and bureaucracy will remain ever inept and inefficient to the detriment of the interest of the country.
Consequently, if this culture persists, the country will continue to suffer and governance will be poorer. This practice of politicisation of administration tells heavily on the economic interests of the nation. Maybe, such culture will help a regime to perpetuate its rule in the interest of the loyal partisan bureaucrats but the losers are the people of the country in terms of tax money paid and the loss of political and economic advantages that the people of the country might derive from good governance and bureaucrats loyal to the republic i.e. to the interests of the country's common people.
Not only that, such practice of politicisation of administration also renders the political governments to be trapped in the bureaucratic high-handedness and corruption and this usually nullifies the good policies of the political governments because of their excessive dependence on inefficient bureaucracy only because it is loyal to the regime. Moreover, the bureaucrats loyal to a particular regime naturally and usually take ill advantages of such weaknesses of the political governments to the loss of a country's overall interests. Similar problem arises in the case of politicisation of other professions also.
The writer is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre.
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