Be HAPPY, admin!

In an effort to keep government employees happy, the finance minister yesterday announced a few proposals in addition to a new pay scale for them from next month.

He, however, didn't focus on reforms in the public administration.

In his budget speech, AMA Muhith proposed setting up a commercial and development bank for the welfare of government staffs.

According to the proposal, the "Samriddhi Sopan Bank" would be owned by public employees, and it would operate with an initial paid-up capital of Tk 400 crore.

This paid-up capital would be collected through sales of primary shares, and only current and retired government employees could buy those.

At present, Bangladesh Army owns Trust Bank, which was launched in July 1999, along with some other business enterprises. 

The minister announced that there would be a pension fund for government employees.

The government would set up "Pension Fund Management Authority" to administer pension-related activities, and allocate a fund for it to pay for pensions and make investments to implement welfare programmes for the pensioners.

The government also seeks to extend housing facilities.

"We are constructing 448 apartments for the employees of the Parliament Secretariat at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, 10-storied residential buildings for government employees in abandoned properties at Segunbagicha and Mohammadpur, and a 20-storied residential building for the honourable judges of the Supreme Court," said Muhith.

Besides, 38,244 plots would be developed and 70,377 apartments would be built under various projects across the country.

"In addition, we have planned to build apartments for officers/judges in government residential colonies in Azimpur and Motijheel," he said.

All these proposals were made in addition to the new pay scale that would be implemented in phases from next month.

"Hopefully, this pay scale will ease the lives of government employees in bearing the cost of living," hoped Muhith.

He, however, didn't come up with any major proposal for reforms in the public administration.

Muhith acknowledged that the Awami League government in its previous tenure couldn't bring necessary reforms in the public administration. "We attached special importance to public administration reform in our election manifesto of 2009. But, progress in this regard has been insignificant."

The minister didn't make any promise to carry out the reforms that the Awami League had proposed in 2008.

At that time, the AL had pledged to depoliticise the public administration and law enforcement agencies, and frame a public service act in line with constitutional provisions.

Muhith yesterday said the government was finalising a national training policy to increase the capacity of public administration.

Over the years, successive governments have kept politicising the public administration, and there has been no visible initiative to free the administration from this culture.

The bureaucrats need not worry about losing control over the administration, as there is little prospect of strengthening the local government system through decentralisation of power.

In the past, the finance minister had made many promises to empower local government bodies. But nothing significant happened.

This year, he spoke up for devolution of state power to make local government institutions effective. But he didn't explain the mode of devolution, which is more effective than decentralisation of state power.

There is a devolution model in the UK. Its parliament enacted separate laws to devolve state powers to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, keeping provisions for a government and a parliament for each of them with some exclusive jurisdictions.   

As in the past, Muhith stressed the need for holding elections to zilla parishads.

But there is little possibility of zilla parishad polls anytime soon. Since December 2011, they have been run by administrators, who are also leaders of the ruling AL.