Road div step flabbergasts Foreign Office

A recent action by the officials of the Road Transport and Highways Division has surprised their counterparts in other ministries.
The division has also been accused of breaching the official norms and the government's rules of business, officials said.
The surprising move was influenced by a request from the Indian high commission in Dhaka where it nudged the road division to bring down the road use fees for carrying goods to its north eastern states via Chittagong and Mongla ports.
After receiving the request, the road division was, in principle, supposed to hold an inter-ministerial meeting to reach a final decision.
Besides, it was to inform the local head of the Bangladesh-India inter-governmental body headed by secretary of the ministry of shipping.
Instead of doing the formalities, the officials of the road division on February 1 held a meeting on this issue and discussed the possibilities of lowering the fees.
Later, the road division, in a letter to the Indian high commission, drove home the message that cutting back on the fees would not be possible without the consent of the ministry of finance. A copy of the letter was also sent to the ministry of foreign affairs to keep it posted on the matter.
The steps of the road division have shocked the officials of the ministry of foreign affairs and other ministries.
In a letter to the road division secretary, the foreign ministry said holding an inter-ministerial meeting and if necessary obtaining approval from the highest level of the government is a practice in the case of issues related to the national interests.
"The foreign ministry was not informed about holding of such a meeting," it said.
The road division also told the Indian mission about its opinion before informing it to the shipping secretary, who is the local head of the inter-governmental body on this issue, the foreign ministry added.
"This time no secrecy was maintained contrary to the norm in case of national interest-related issue linked to a foreign country," it said.
As a result, the interest of the government was "compromised" and also the scope for renegotiating the issue at the Bangladesh-India inter-government committee meeting at a congenial atmosphere has been squeezed, the foreign ministry letter argued.
Furthermore, the road division's meeting indirectly encouraged the Indian mission to directly contact the finance division for reviewing the road use fee, it added.
"The rules of business have defined the ways and means of how a foreign mission should contact a department of the government on inter-governmental issues," the foreign ministry's letter noted.
Indeed, the road division has communicated with the Indian high commission, violating the diplomatic norm, it added.
Contacted on Thursday, shipping secretary Mohammed Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury told the FE that he was not aware of any such inter-ministerial meeting on this matter in recent past.
"In such meetings, usually a representative of the shipping ministry joins the secretary's briefing and debriefs him after the meeting. I can't recall any such development," he said.
Road division secretary Nazrul Islam cited a procedural fault in this case.
There was no decision from the ministry to send any letter to the Indian high commission on the meeting's outcome.
"The decision was to seek concurrence from the finance division on this issue as per rules of business," he told the FE on Thursday.
The secretary said last Tuesday, he sought explanation from the official, who conveyed the ministry's decision to the Indian high commission.

[email protected]
[email protected]