Permissive administration: Eroding confidence

THREE years is not a long time for a political administration to bring about administrative reforms. But it is long enough to judge the quality of a party's governance when in power. As the AL-led alliance completes three and a half years in power, the occasion should ideally be a cause of celebration. But there is hardly anything to celebrate because what actually happened was contrary to people's expectations.
As time rolls on, there is disillusionment or a sense of indifference among those who wanted to see the chief executive as a person chosen to bring a great change. Power, it now seems, has not only corrupted the party and its stalwarts, but has also immobilised them. With Padma bridge construction and Metro Rail project now in limbo and development efforts in total disarray because of governance failure, it is clear that there is hard time for people in the coming days.
The government is facing enormous challenges on all fronts: unbridled corruption, moral decay, political stagnation, mounting inflation, accumulation of wealth in some unscrupulous hands, price hike of essentials resulting from continuous hike in power tariff, and politicisation of administration
The alliance government will walk out not like heroes in the cause of the people but like one betrayed by its partners and sycophants. The people brought them to power because there was a groundswell of faith, and it was up to the government to turn that popular faith into performance. That didn't happen. The last three years of this government saw only instances of hope abandoned and trust betrayed.
There was and there is stability, and no political threat to anybody's position, nor any stirrings of change in the country. Politically the balance sheet is pathetic. There seems to be no agenda, no vision. There is a chance for the exploiters, extortionists, corrupt officials and political mastans to have a field day. The PMO appears incapable of taking action against corrupt officials and associates of the ruling alliance.
One of the most infuriating features of the country as well as the government is that time and timeliness have no value. The last few months were dominated by events that demonstrated the grave consequences of allowing things to slide. It started with the murder of Narsingdi Mayor Lokman. The murder of Nurul Absar (35), Nalua upazila chairman and a teacher in a local degree college in Satkania, has sent chills up everybody's spines. It reinforces our belief that social workers and activists are not safe even in the sanctuary of their houses.
With so much violence day in and day out we seem to have become a nation where one's lust for money, or failure to get the woman of one's choice, or disagreements in politics, are too often resolved by taking the life of a human being.
People cannot fathom the reason or rationality behind setting a passenger bus on fire, which killed one person on the spot and severely injured Mokbul Hossain, a veteran freedom fighter. Mokbul asked in a choked voice: "Did we free the country from the clutches of the Pakistani hordes just to put it in the dirty hands of our own children inspired with such savage mores?" In Sylhet, stalkers, in their bid to kidnap three girl companions, beat two students to death when they resisted and threw them in the river.
Mugging is on the rise. Reports published in Prothom Alo revealed that in eight incidents of mugging in the city in December, Tk.62 lakh was looted, one person was killed and eight persons were severely injured while resisting.
These dastardly criminal activities of a microscopic section of the populace should have alerted the politicians to evaluate the goals of a democratic society. Everyday concerns of the safety and security of the society should not be mortgaged to the ideology of power, wealth and violence. The sooner this reality is understood, the better. It is in this light that our leaders, politicians and custodians of the society must take appropriate measures to curb terrorism of all sorts.
Many people now say that the country is faced with a crisis of governance, the root cause of which is the "flawed design" of our democracy. While committing ourselves to the dictum of development and taking measures that would enable us to ensure law and order and stability, we tend to think that everything is fair in politics.
If what is happening in the country is any indication, governance at all levels of administration seems to be flawed. With the political parties busy in hurling abuses at each other and mostly preoccupied with digging up the past, the administration is facing a crisis of confidence. By now the rule of reason, ethical responsibility and proper surveillance and monitoring of activities have become illusions.
Stability requires a degree of rectitude, coherence, policy pattern, courage, capacity to make intelligent guesses and determination to stand firm in the face of all odds. Of course crime has always existed in the society but the rot was never as pervasive as it is now. Majority of the politicians in the earlier days were men of austerity known for their charisma, sacrifice and fighting spirit. But now a majority of them flaunt their wealth, no matter that they owe banks crores of taka as overdue loans.
Shockingly, the weakening of moral standard and authority of politicians only increase arbitrary power of officials at different tiers of administration. People feel this has led to a situation where bureaucrats are indifferent and shy away from their administrative responsibilities. Many public employees demand pay-offs even for moving a file from one table to the other.
People want fulfillment of the promises made to them time and again by the leaders. They are getting tired of slogans and rhetoric. They are sick of the leaders preaching ideologies but never practicing them, and by now are convinced that unscrupulous persons occupying the driver's seat in public offices cannot be booked -- because of the politicisation of criminal investigation.
With crises multiplying everyday, Prime Minister Sk. Hasina surely understands what is at stake. We might recall that great US presidents (Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman) owe their reputations to crisis leadership. Their lesser failures were forgotten. By the same token, many presidents were destroyed by crises. Lyndon Johnson was devoured by Vietnam War, Jimmy Carter by the Iranian hostage crisis and Nixon by the Watergate scandal.
The overriding fear is that political feud and administrative paralysis that have started surfacing may take the country back to chaos and the economy could bleed again. Fully aware of the pitfalls that lie ahead, Prime Minister Sk. Hasina, people believe, could change her style of governance with a vision.
The writer is a Columnist of The Daily Star.
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