Merit crisis in administration An introspection

Nevertheless, the observation of the Prime Minister as the Head of the Administration, would not absolve her or any one else in her place, of the vicarious responsibility for the crisis in the administration. As has been the pitiable tradition in our country the bureaucracy, often subject to criticism by the politicians having no idea about a better alternative, is hardly allowed to perform their duties and responsibilities in accordance with the set rules of business. Those very few thorough-bred civil servants displaying guts to go by the rules and procedures often come in conflict with the political party in power and eventually disgraced. At such moments the lesser ones come into limelight playing second fiddle to the wary political masters in the administration and feigning themselves as the 'loyalists' take the positions of their humiliated bosses. The latter are either made OSDs or are forced into premature retirement or taking long leave to be away from the circus.

Again there are the ones who, upon their attaining the age of super-annuation or retirement hang on with contractual employment. There are instances of such people getting extension two to four times. In consequence, the officials who are aspirants for the slots occupied by the contractual ones, are demoralised and frustrated. Those who merit promotion would most naturally and justifiably grudge such unwholesome dispensation.

If the administration is bereft of skill and is inefficient and unworthy it creates various types of impediments to good governance and to the development of the country. It has been indeed a perpetual malady with the national administrative machinery. This can be attributed to two broad reasons, namely, the ever declining quality of the top ranking civil servants and the reckless and forced politicising of the whole administrative structure. None seems to have been able to attach any importance to the far reaching damage, due to such imposition, done to the administrative machinery. Such intriguing intervention extending to frequent changes of the incumbents aimed at joining effective support from the 'liked ones' has been proved to be a suicidal gamble on the part of the party in power.

Individual's 'likes and dislikes', irrespective of the operational requirements of the administration, make the bureaucracy all the more ineffective. Such wishful mechanism of placing the so called 'like-minded confidants' in key positions ostensibly with the purpose of containing 'imaginary opponents', has already done irrepairable damage. As long as the political party in power is unable to shun such an ignominious administrative philosophy things will continue worsening.

We have already enough examples of mal-administration reflected in large scale corruption and in many development projects being stuck up half way due to failure of the assigned implementers at the cost of the national exchequer. Unfortunately, this has been the scenario and a perpetual legacy passed on to the future government by the present. It may be added that notwithstanding the political and partisan 'motivation' of the people in the administration towards fulfilling the political programmes of the party in power, one may express his reservation about the overall quality of the people thus culled out for manning key positions. In order to become persons of the inner circle these men would pursue their chores just on casual footing, never going deep into any administrative problem, nor ever able to offer tangible solutions with objective analysis. They would also pass on the bucks to the higher authority taking advantage of the centralisation of power and refrain from taking decision themselves. Another major stigma has been that the people in the administrative machinery, have, in most of the cases, enough responsibility but with no authority. And even if they had the authority (they do have in some cases) how many of them would exercise the authority is a matter to ponder upon.

Only very recently we were told by the news media that the present government was seriously thinking of maximum decentralisation in administration. A committee was reported to have been constituted to work on the subject. It is, however, very premature to guess about the level(s) down which the envisioned decentralisation shall extend and from where shall it start. As of now, we are used to observe almost all administrative powers are vested with the Chief Executive of the government. There have been instances of ministers soliciting Prime Minister's approval to even routine matters, let alone policy issues. Even approval given by the Finance and Planning Minister acting as the Vice Chairman of ECNEC has to be okayed by the Prime Minister. Our administrative system has been so designed. And whosoever is the incumbent it is most likely that she/he will be more psychologically predisposed to exercising all those powers himself/herself.

"True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes" -- so said Earl Halifax, former Chancellor of Oxford University. Talking about 'merit of our civil servants at the ministerial level we are invariably dragged into a debatable controversy. It shall eventually take us to the 'quality' aspect which, even though we shall not generalise so as not to offend the very few with some degree of brilliance, we shall have huge reservation about the majority. The situation shall appear all the more emaciated due to free political patronage for gaining unqualified loyalty of those favoured ones though not deserving. Such forced loyalty and unsavoury allegiance inevitably blindfold these beneficiaries to the good bureaucratic practices, the set norms of rules and regulations and ultimately trap them in compelling situations dispensing undue favours to their 'highly placed' benefactors and/or against their noble and formidable names, to the 'party zealots, musclemen fondly called 'party cadre'!

Actually the crisis of merit the Hon'ble Prime Minister was taking about at BPATC, Savar, owed its origin to the level of real excellence of the basic educational background of the individuals donning BCS cadre and of those non-cadre ones and promotees from lower ranks. And when we look at the educational background of the average BCS officers routed through the Public Service Commission we are scarcely impressed. We are even entrapped by certain intriguing thoughts about the much publicised scandals around the conduct of BCS examination in the past couple of years, adoption of unfair means, etc.

The Prime Minister was very right when she said that there was no alternative to training. She exhorted the trainers in BPATC to impart such training to the batch of BCS officers as would enable them do full justice to their placement in important administrative positions and display real merit of performance. It is indeed not too much of an expectation from the head of the government. But, in the context of the basic weaknesses in the whole administrative system, vis-a-vis the inconsequential political exploitation of bureaucracy, the fulfilment of the expectation shall only be a reality as and when the insidious loopholes are honestly removed beforehand. Else, it shall continue as a cry in the wilderness betraying ever the credibility of the ones harbouring such expectation keeping their eyes closed to the actual causes of the present 'merit crisis'.

Kazi Alauddin Ahmed is an industrial consultant.