Fhere is an unhealthy tension prevailing in the civil bureaucracy. A large section is happy that they have been promoted to higher posts on claims that the previous governments, particularly the BNP, by-passed them unfairly. This has left an equally large number of civil bureaucrats unhappy and they are now claiming that they have been deprived of their due promotion unfairly to promote this large number.
The number of civil servants who have been promoted to ranks of Deputy Secretary, Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary is 496. According to an unofficial source, 526 civil bureaucrats have been by-passed to promote the 496. One fact about this promotion fiasco is a significant number of these officers have been promoted although in the approved organogram, there are no vacant posts. All these promoted officers have been attached to the Establishment Division as OSD where a large number of such officers is already languishing for many months since the AL came to office. These officers have been made OSD mainly because of political reasons and therefore their fate becomes more uncertain. The Establishment Division will need a magic wand to find posts for the newly promoted officers.
According to the government, the promotions, the largest at any one time in Bangladesh's history, have been given because during the BNP's term of office, many qualified officers were by-passed for promotion on political ground. The claim is correct because during the last BNP government, many promotions were made and rejected on political ground.
But then, promotions on political grounds have been given by the Awami League government that preceded the BNP in 2001. In fact, the bureaucracy was politicised with the direct encouragement of the Awami League in 1996 when the civil bureaucrats with links to the Awami League helped bring down the BNP government through the "Janatar Mancha." The Awami League government that came to office in 1996 used politics as a major criterion in promotions and postings in the civil bureaucracy.
During the BNP term in 2001, the politicisation of the bureaucracy extended deeper and many qualified bureaucrats suffered because of their alleged or assumed political connections. The BNP had reasons initially to deal with those who worked for the Janatar Mancha because they helped bring them down by supporting the AL. But the BNP went far beyond and ensured that no one with alleged AL links was promoted or posted in important positions during its entire tenure. Many were also retired from service. There are allegations that individuals at the PMO used politics to trade in promotions and postings. In fact, one of the major reasons why the BNP lost so badly in the last election was the way they treated the civil bureaucracy where mindless politicisation literally broke the ability of the institution to deliver.
One would have thought that the two major political parties who politicised the bureaucracy while in power would realise that their actions weaken the bureaucracy that in turn make the government weak. At the same time however, the AL that is now in government has the moral responsibility of doing justice to those whom the BNP had denied promotion for their alleged political links. However, correcting an incorrect decision of the past in an institution as big as the civil bureaucracy is not an easy matter. Thus, the promotions given by the government very recently have caused new irregularities and miscarriage of justice. First, it has promoted officers without vacant posts, which is illegal. Second, most of the promoted officers are from the 1982 Special BCS batch who have superseded officers of the regular batch which is another action without legal validity. Third, by trying to do justice to those who were deprived promotions on political ground by the BNP, it has by-passed a large number of officers, over 500, who have done nothing wrong. Thus for doing justice to the promoted officers, the government has been unjust to those who are now aggrieved. There is reason to believe that this large number of officers has been by passed because they are alleged to be supporters of the BNP-Jamat alliance. Thus in effect, the Awami League Government has done exactly what it has accused the BNP government of doing in its 2001-2006 terms; it has simultaneously promoted and victimised officers based on political connections. Only, this time, the number involved in this eerie system of justice in the bureaucracy is the largest, both in terms of justice done and justice denied.
There are a few new elements here that need noting. First, the AL government will be running administration this time with bureaucrats who have all been recruited in the post-Bangladesh period. There has been a qualitative downward trend in recruitment in the civil bureaucracy between the Pakistan and Bangladesh periods. The civil bureaucracy is today in its weakest state since we have been independent. Added to this is the fact that this government is being run by Ministers who are inexperienced. At a time like this, to make a substantial number of civil bureaucrats unhappy to make a substantial section happy is going to affect the ability of this weak bureaucracy to deliver upon the promises and the objectives that this government has set for itself. The other fact worth noting is the large number of members of the minority community promoted that is significantly disproportionate to the percentage they hold in the country's population. The government should have considered a possible backlash on this issue at some point later. The disproportionate number apart, it is also revealing that there is such a large number of the minority community working in the civil bureaucracy that should be used to highlight the secular nature of the country; a point that is often lost because of the nature of politics in the country.
The civil bureaucracy in Bangladesh has been organised on the laws, principles, morals and ethics that have governed the civil bureaucracy in our British and Pakistani days. Civil servants of Bangladesh by their official code of conduct are strictly directed to perform their duties in accordance with the law. Political neutrality is at the core of such conduct. The two mainstream parties have struck the civil bureaucracy at its core and have tried to replace political neutrality with political partiality as the main consideration for promotions and postings. Loyalty to the party in power is today considered a more important criterion for a civil bureaucrat than merit that is considered dispensable when loyalty is in question.
Unfortunately, the element of loyalty is destructive both for the civil bureaucracy and the bureaucrats because we have a democratic system of election that has in the past sent to power one of the two mainstream parties to power alternatively. When AL was in power in 1996 and made political loyalty indispensable, it divided the civil bureaucracy into pro-AL and pro-BNP camps. When the BNP came to office in 2001, it followed the AL script dutifully and thanks to them, it also was not very difficult for the BNP to know who were not loyal to them. When it was the BNP's turn to do the favour to the AL on the loyalty issue during its 2001-2006 tenure, it did even better and left the AL with a more comprehensive list of BNP loyalists in bureaucracy. The loyalty issue however places a large number of civil bureaucrats who have no political affiliation in a situation where they cannot function to their best abilities because they feel that those with political affiliations will be promoted and posted to important posts ahead of them even if they have better merit and worked harder. Politicisation of the bureaucracy is thus slowly but surely destroying the civil bureaucracy if it has done not so already. The BNP and the AL's way of politicising the civil bureaucracy can work only if either can ensure that it will remain in power perpetually; if they alternate as they are doing now, this politicisation is destructive for the country.
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