Reforming the Public Service Commission
Sunday, 3 June 2007
THE steps, taken so far, by the caretaker government for revamping the Public Service Commission, are praiseworthy. It is now headed by a retired cabinet secretary, having a good track record of honesty, integrity and probity in his service career. All concerned would now look forward to further moves for an overhaul of the PSC which is direly needed for restoring confidence in its proper functioning.
The PSC is the official body responsible for the recruitment of government officials and employees at different levels. It conducts public examinations for the purpose of recruitment and also plays a part in the training of the recruited personnel. It is the gateway to the vital services of the Republic. Therefore, its proper functioning is crucial in respect of the quality of persons who are selected for government services. The PSC remains entrusted with the task of holding appropriate examinations and to carry out other processes to ensure that only the persons who meet fully the criterion set in these examinations and selection process can enter the country's civil services. Understandably, the expectations are that the PSC would conduct these examinations and related processes very scrupulously and efficiently to enable the fittest ones in terms of capabilities and character to join the civil services.
Unfortunately, the PSC in recent years has been seriously failing in these tasks and the main reason for such a regrettable decline in its performance is its politicisation. Top echelons of the PSC were manned by the lackeys of the previous ruling party and they were there to carry out a design of recruiting employees of the government who could be relied on to work loyally for that particular political party on taking up their government jobs. There were repeated allegations against the PSC for leakage of question papers of the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examinations to cater to these ends. Even in viva interviews of the ones who passed these examinations, it became transparent in many cases that the candidates were questioned or subjected to tricks to absolutely ascertain their loyalty to a particular political party. The ones who did not or could not quite prove such loyalty -- convincingly -- were shown to have not met the standards in the recruitment procedures. Thus, a large number of recruitments were reportedly made for the civil services in past several years, not much on consideration of their competence and real academic qualifications. Rather, their unalloyed loyalty to a particular political party was the main criterion for their recruitments. This is the public understanding of the situation on real or perceived grounds. The media highlighted irregularities on several occasions in the recruitment process by the PSC.
There is no need to explain in details how serious these allegations of irregularities are, leading to perverting an important official body to turn itself into an instrument for doing the bidding of some vested political interest groups. Not only the same represents grave immorality and injustice, the deteriorated performance of civil servants in most cases can also be traced to such manipulation.
Therefore, the present caretaker government which is doing a good work of deep cleansing different institutions, should also take committed follow-up steps to restructure and reconstitute the PSC.
The PSC is the official body responsible for the recruitment of government officials and employees at different levels. It conducts public examinations for the purpose of recruitment and also plays a part in the training of the recruited personnel. It is the gateway to the vital services of the Republic. Therefore, its proper functioning is crucial in respect of the quality of persons who are selected for government services. The PSC remains entrusted with the task of holding appropriate examinations and to carry out other processes to ensure that only the persons who meet fully the criterion set in these examinations and selection process can enter the country's civil services. Understandably, the expectations are that the PSC would conduct these examinations and related processes very scrupulously and efficiently to enable the fittest ones in terms of capabilities and character to join the civil services.
Unfortunately, the PSC in recent years has been seriously failing in these tasks and the main reason for such a regrettable decline in its performance is its politicisation. Top echelons of the PSC were manned by the lackeys of the previous ruling party and they were there to carry out a design of recruiting employees of the government who could be relied on to work loyally for that particular political party on taking up their government jobs. There were repeated allegations against the PSC for leakage of question papers of the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examinations to cater to these ends. Even in viva interviews of the ones who passed these examinations, it became transparent in many cases that the candidates were questioned or subjected to tricks to absolutely ascertain their loyalty to a particular political party. The ones who did not or could not quite prove such loyalty -- convincingly -- were shown to have not met the standards in the recruitment procedures. Thus, a large number of recruitments were reportedly made for the civil services in past several years, not much on consideration of their competence and real academic qualifications. Rather, their unalloyed loyalty to a particular political party was the main criterion for their recruitments. This is the public understanding of the situation on real or perceived grounds. The media highlighted irregularities on several occasions in the recruitment process by the PSC.
There is no need to explain in details how serious these allegations of irregularities are, leading to perverting an important official body to turn itself into an instrument for doing the bidding of some vested political interest groups. Not only the same represents grave immorality and injustice, the deteriorated performance of civil servants in most cases can also be traced to such manipulation.
Therefore, the present caretaker government which is doing a good work of deep cleansing different institutions, should also take committed follow-up steps to restructure and reconstitute the PSC.