Civil service reforms

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CIVIL servants in our country typically behave that they form a privileged group like the hereditary aristocracy. Most of them view their jobs as of a type they can carry on until their retirement time without suffering any penalty for their underperformance or irregularities.
Therefore, the prevailing conditions call for nothing short of a system of firm accountability so that a civil servant of any rank feels that he or she must perform up to a desired level and failure to do so will invite the paying of penalties.
At the same time, the good performances on their part must be promptly noted and rewarded with promotions and other forms of recognition to keep their motivation high. Such a well established mechanism to keep the civil servants on their toes and get the desired output from them - quantitatively or qualitatively - is likely to be more effective than any amount of moral exhortations for them to approach their work with honesty and sincerity.
Experience proves, specially in the Bangladesh context, that only the creation of material incentives are not enough to get the best out of individuals. The police, for instance, are being better supplied with many facilities compared to the past. But this has not led to improving their level of performance because of the lack of a prompt and firm accountability structure. Individuals in most cases do not or cannot take the initiative to improve themselves. However, if an effective system is in place to guard against their wrong doings and slothful mentality, then the same more or less delivers results in all situations.
Apart from a proper accountability structure , the civil services are in need of extensive reforms of a varied nature in every government department. There is no need to set up another administrative reforms commission to go to work again to find out what ails the civil services. The recommendations of the several administrative reforms commissions of the past can be studied and implementation of their meritorious proposals would suffice to achieve improvement in the functioning of the civil services within a time frame.
The tasks of reforming the civil services should be taken up seriously by the present caretaker government for completion within its tenure.
Abdur Rahim
Khilgaon, Chowdurypara