Public administration in dire straits
THE government has again gone for another spate of promotion of senior level bureaucrats, despite its being already hobbled by excessive promotions given over the past five years more on considerations of loyalty than on merit, efficiency and performance. This has completed the cycle of politics making deep inroad into the administration.
The upshot of the promotion spree at the top echelons has reached such proportions that we have now three to four times more officials in the administration than are mentioned in the organogram. And this has caused to upset the ideal and time-tested pyramidal structure of the administration.
But giving politics the upper hand at the expense of merit, efficiency, performance and seniority, the civil bureaucracy has grown top heavy. And since it is not merit, but loyalty to the party in power that determines one's future in the job, the immediate casualty is the morale of the public servants in general. Small wonder, far from being infused with dynamism, they have been losing zeal and initiative for work. The administrative chain of command breaking, a tectonic jolt has been given to the whole administration's level of competence.
The government must stop the rot that has already set in. To that end, the imperative is to revive and implement the proposed public servants law to regulate the bureaucracy. It is worthwhile to note that recommendations made in the proposed law stress merit and performance from recruitment to posting to promotion in the public service.
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