Our ministers

By M Rubaiyat Kibria, University of Sydney, Australia
22 February 2004, 18:00 PM
In civilised nations, the minister concerned usually takes the responsibility for any mishap concerning his/her ministry. But Bangladeshi ministers are really different! They would rather get greatly embarrassed , but never give up the portfolio of a minister. Let's take a look at some of the incidents upon which any minister in a democratic country would have resigned:

The law and order situation is deteriorating , but there is a total indifference on the part of the minister concerned; rather there has been a hilarious decision to change the uniform of the police without addressing issues like their moral standing and the failure to nab top criminals who are believed to be patronised by politically influential godfathers.

What is pretty clear is that there is nobody to shoulder the responsibility of the failures.

There are many other examples of failures and corruptionthe alleged CNG import scandal, digging of newly renovated roads in the city for the purpose of laying Titas pipelines, removal of the Airport Road divider and then putting it back at the expense of tax payers. The repeated leakage of the BCS examination questions and all other public exam questions is another example of very poor performance on the part of the government agencies concerned. But there is no one to say that he is ready to take the responsibility.

I wonder if there would come a day when even in Bangladesh, a minister would take the blame for the inefficiency of his ministry and resign like they do even in our neighbouring India! Someone may argue with me that if all these learned people resign, then who would replace them? I sincerely believe that there are a lot of genuinely qualified people in Bangladesh who could replace them.