A chef with no hands

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There is an American expression that accurately describes the stagnation of Bangladeshi government: too many cooks in the kitchen. Not only are there too many, but our cooks are pretty lousy and we are stuck with them.
Bangladeshi civil servants live in a dream world -- ultimate job security. Their positions are stable irrespective of how atrocious or non-existent their work may be. One bureaucrat described a situation to me where eight employees came to work once a month just to collect their salaries. The mechanisms for removing the unnecessary workers were so difficult to navigate that it ultimately cost less to keep signing pay-checks.
The Ministry of Establishment handles promotions and grants them based on positive performance reviews. This process is antithetical to efficient organisation because the Ministry of Establishment is independent of individual ministers.
An organisation's success is dependent on its employees; bad employees lead to stagnation. The corporate structure is successful because it naturally works to employ the best people, with the best of the best in the highest positions. The head of a corporation has the mother of all incentives to make this process work -- profit. The end result is a very efficient and effective organisation.
A minister similarly has every incentive to make his organisation work -- votes. If a single department in the government has poor performance, it may derail the ruling party's election. An example of this is the controversial performance of the US Department of Education under President George W. Bush. A minister thus has the most incentive to ensure that his or her ministry is working.
Unfortunately, today's minister cannot exercise that incentive. Even the secretary, the most powerful bureaucrat in a ministry is not hired and cannot be fired by the minister. A minister inherits a bureaucracy but lacks the basic power of removing bad employees and hiring good ones. Thus, the minister cannot logically be held accountable for his or her organisation.
We lose basic accountability. The prime minister cannot fairly hold his or her ministers accountable. If the head of an organisation does not even hold the leverage of firing an employee for bad performance, he or she cannot deliver the fundamental incentive to employees for them to work effectively -- the assurance of keeping one's job. The result is stagnation. All employees will continue to work at a low level of performance, or may not even work at all. Their pay-check is all but guaranteed, even if they don't show up to work.
Bangladeshi development is moving along at a slow pace. Our growth rate is unacceptable and our government's failure to perform effectively has a major and undeniable role in this. We need to reform if we expect to develop before the next Ice Age.
Ministers need to have full control over their ministries. They need to be able to choose their secretaries and have a large influence over who gets the rest of the jobs in the ministries. If this happens, we clear up the too often confusing power relationship between the minister and secretary, which results in a loss of accountability. With these new powers, voters can comfortably know who is responsible for the performance of their government.
The fear for making such a move is that corrupt Bangladeshi ministers will just stuff their ministries with their own people. Let them. Let them give every first, second, and third cousin a post in their ministry. If these cousins happen to be wonderful workers, then nothing is lost.
When these cousins likely fail at their jobs, we know whom to punish at the voting booth and can be assured that the next minister will think twice before doing this same. We achieve accountability. If we don't make this move, we can expect more of the same.
Development is a long process and government is a necessary tool. However, if we want to engage the abysmal markers of our government -- corruption and inefficiency -- we must reorganise the structure of incentives at the top level. Ministers need control over their organisations to translate their incentive for votes into development.
We expect better from our government. Let us allow it to perform better.

Faisal Hamid is a sophomore at Yale University and an intern for Minister G.M. Quader.