No more blame game, please!
THE Daily Star of July 23 ran a front-page story under the headline "Ministers, bureaucrats trade blame." It reported that ministers and senior bureaucrats were blaming each other for the poor performance of different ministries and for the failure to speed up the work in the Secretariat.
While the ministers and state ministers feel that the poor performance of top bureaucrats, non-cooperation of many senior officials loyal to BNP-Jamaat coalition, and the work habit of government officials during the BNP-led four-party alliance government and the caretaker government are responsible for the slow pace of work, the senior bureaucrats, on the other hand, hold the inexperience of many ministers and state ministers and frequent transfers and postings of officers responsible for sluggishness in the administration.
There are truths on both sides. However, analysts attribute the sluggishness in administration and lack of dynamism in the working of the secretariat primarily to the following reasons:
On the recommendation of the prime minister, the president makes the rules of business (Rob) for the allocation and transaction of the business of the government. The first Rob of independent Bangladesh was framed in November 1975. Under this Rob, a minister was primarily responsible for policy matters concerning his ministry and for conducting the business of his ministry in the parliament.
As the official head of the ministry, the secretary, in addition to being the principal accounting officer, was responsible for the ministry's administration and discipline and for the proper conduct of business assigned to it.
The Awami League (AL) government of 1996-2001 made a sweeping change in the aforesaid provision. The Rob-1996, which superseded that of 1975, provided that all business allocated to a ministry/division should be disposed of by, or under the general or special directions of, the minister-in-charge. The status of the secretary as the "official head" was abolished.
The above change means that hardly any case can be disposed of at the level of the secretary, not to speak of a level below him. This is the position that stands at the moment, even though some minor amendments were made to the Rob by the last caretaker government in 2008. How can we expect quick disposal of cases when the highest bureaucrat in a ministry/division has no power to take decisions on them?
In a ministry/division, disposal of business needs teamwork. A file normally has to pass four to five tiers before it reaches the minister for a decision. Secretariat instructions have a prescribed time-limit for completing detailed analysis and examination of a case by the officer-in-charge of the section, deputy secretary and other senior officers for its disposal -- and the time-limits are 72 hours, 48 hours and 24 hours respectively. But this instruction is hardly complied with. It is not known whether any officer has ever been punished for violating this instruction.
There are clear guidelines as to which cases have to be referred by the attached departments and statutory bodies to the government through the administrative ministries for approval. But there is no dearth of instances to show formal and informal interference by the administrative ministries, in particular by the ministers, in the areas or cases that departments or statutory bodies are competent to dispose of under the existing laws, rules, etc.
Such interference results in inordinate delays in disposal of the relevant cases in the concerned departments and statutory bodies on the one hand, and creates unnecessary file work in the relevant ministries/divisions on the other hand. Reportedly, there has been no change in such interference under the current government.
According to the Rob, when the subject of a case concerns more than one ministry/ division, orders shall not be issued, nor shall the case be submitted to the prime minister or the cabinet until it has been considered by all the ministries/divisions concerned and their views are properly recorded.
The administrative ministry faces inordinate delay in securing opinions of the concerned ministries/divisions. Since decision-making power of a ministry lies with the minister, meetings between the ministers concerned may help in reaching the desired consensus. But this has not been always happening.
Politicisation of the bureaucracy has been a feature of our administration since independence of the country. This took a new turn in the early nineties when parliamentary system of government was reintroduced. It reached a new height during the time of the BNP-led four-party alliance government.
Almost all branches of administration were highly politicised. It appears that the present AL-led alliance government is very keen to follow that policy. During the last six moths, the government made a number of secretaries OSDs for their alleged loyalty to the BNP-led alliance government.
A secretary is the topmost bureaucrat in a ministry and he has to maintain close liaison with the party government for implementation of its policy. This cannot be an excuse for making a secretary OSD or for termination of his job. This affects the morale of other senior officers, who feel shaky in taking any decision. This results in slowing down of the pace of work.
Inefficiency has been pervasive in the administration since the retirement of bureaucrats recruited by the Central Public Service Commission of Pakistan and the East Pakistan Public Service Commission. This inefficiency is primarily attributed to recruitment in various cadres in BCS on partisan consideration, lack of appropriate in-service training and poor knowledge of the English language.
A look into the Rob shows the long list of cases that require approval of the prime minister (PM). Actually, not a single important case moves without the approval of the PM. This has been the practice since the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy. The ministries/divisions have been left with very limited powers in the final disposal of their allocated functions.
Another interesting development is the "in-fighting" between the ministers and the advisers to the PM holding the rank and status of ministers. An English language weekly (Holiday of July 17) has recently written that the seven advisers to the PM collectively form a "super ministry."
This effectively centralises power in the prime minister's office (PMO) and away from the cabinet, a reversal of the parliamentary norm. The advisers are actually running the various ministries at long distance as "the PM's surrogates." This arrangement divorces responsibility (ministers) from authority (advisers) and is hardly a sound management practice, especially of a bureaucracy not known for efficiency.
In view of what has been stated above, it is high time for ministers and senior bureaucrats to stop the blame game and find out measures that can ensure dynamism in the working of the Bangladesh Secretariat, commonly known as "the seat of the government," in greater national interest.
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