PM's significant observations

We appreciate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's perceptive, forthright and, to an extent, introspective, remarks about bureaucrats in a cabinet meeting on Monday. She counseled her cabinet colleagues to be wary of bureaucrats who give primacy to loyalty and tend to hide their under-performance behind such obeisance. They sugarcoat their 'insincerity', sometimes bordering on the sycophantic, saying things that would only please the government as the ground under the latter's feet slipped away beneath a make-believe veneer of self-confidence and complacency.
The PM shows a sense of urgency by recognising that the time is running out insofar as implementing the development goals the AL stands committed to. We think she has hit the nail on the head. However as we see it, her asking the ministers to keep a close eye on the bureaucrats and egg them on to perform better than merely flaunt the loyalty card needs to be placed in an overall perspective for the sake of a booster to good governance.
There is however, a general point to make: some bureaucrats would deserve a flak for good reasons while there may be others who perform with integrity qualifying to be rewarded; instead, they are made into OSDs and marginalised -- on perceived political considerations.
It won't be out of place to point to a certain duality of control over ministries between the ministers and advisers. Furthermore, given the preponderance of 'tadbir' culture, claiming a good deal of time and energy of ministers and secretaries and the frequency of foreign trips of high functionaries, the slothful decision-making and development work are rooted in other self-evident factors as well. These need to be attended to, if we are to see the desired improvement in governance, project implementation and public service delivery.
On the other hand, the PM is on record having repeatedly warned ministers, party leaders and MPs against consequences of abuse of power and unwanted interference in the administration. She must keep an eye on it.
Yet, on another plane, her government has sown seeds of conflict between the MPs and the local elected body chiefs to the detriment of both the law-making function of the MPs and the legitimate autonomous functioning of the local bodies. At the same time, the UNOs have been placed atop the upazila chairmen in certain matters of utilisation of funds. This is not only a spanner in the wheels of development but also participatory democracy based on devolution of authority. These contradictions should be taken care of.