Rationalising the Cabinet

According to the Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment) Act, 2004: "There shall be reserved forty five seats exclusively for women members and they will be elected by the members of the Parliament in accordance with law on the basis of procedure of proportional representation in the Parliament through single transferable vote."

So, the total number of seats of members of Parliament including the three hundred members referred to in Article 65 (2) stand at 345. One-tenth of 345 comes to 35. Article 55 (1) of the Constitution provides that there shall be a Cabinet for Bangladesh having the Prime Minister at its head and comprising also such other Ministers as the Prime Minister may from time to time designate. According to Article 58 (5), "Minister" includes Minister of State and Deputy Minister. This means that according to the proposed amendment, the total number of Ministers, Ministers of State, and Deputy Ministers will not exceed 35. At present there are 50 Ministers, Ministers of State, and Deputy Ministers. The statement regarding objects and reasons of the proposed bill has reportedly said that there has been a tendency for a big Cabinet in Bangladesh. The ministers outnumber the portfolios and this sometimes creates problems for allocating portfolios among the ministers. Downsizing the Cabinet will help reduce the cost of the government. The chairman of the committee will communicate with the Speaker of the Parliament for placement of the bill in the House. If the Speaker allows placement of the bill in the House, then it will be sent to the Standing Committee on Ministry of Law for scrutiny. The passage of the bill will require amendments to Articles 55 and 56 of the Constitution in view of the fact that these Articles have neither limited the size of the Cabinet nor fixed the total number of ministers to be appointed.

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Private members' bill differs from government bill in the sense that a Minister moves a government bill whereas private members' bill is moved by a member other than a Minister. It may be mentioned that according to Rules of Procedure of Parliament of Bangladesh, the functions of the Committee on Private Members' Bills and Resolutions include, inter alia, (a) examining every bill seeking to amend the Constitution, notice of which has been given by a private member, before a motion for leave to introduce the bill is included in the Orders of the Day; (b) examining all private members' bills after they are introduced and before they are taken up for consideration in the House (Rule 223).

The press has been appreciative of the aforesaid decision of the Committee on Private Members' Bills and Resolutions. The Daily Star's editorial of September 6 congratulated the above referred parliamentary committee for its decision to introduce a constitutional amendment in the House to permanently fix the size of the Cabinet, and expressed hope that the Prime Minister would give serious thought to the matter. The editorial concluded with the hope that "good sense will prevail upon the government and the issue will be discussed thoroughly both inside and outside the House."

The New Nation's editorial of September 6 says: "The parliamentary standing committee on Private Members' Bills and Resolutions has decided to table a bill in the House, which has proposed to reduce the size of the council of ministers. Reduction of the size of the entire government that is, the Cabinet and the permanent set-up of the government at all levels, has been a regular urge of the multilateral donor agencies. Different national quarters have also been extending support to this idea because the bigger portion of the national budget has to be spent to maintain a big core of administrative staff to implement a development programme for which not much resource is left in the budget."

In exercise of the powers given by the Constitution, the President makes rules for allocation and transaction of business of the government. These rules are called Rules of Business. Rules of Business, 1975, amended from time to time, were finally replaced by Rules of Business, 1996, during the period of the immediate past AL government. These Rules of Business provide that: "where there is a Minister of State/Deputy Minister, the Prime Minister or the Minister-in-charge with the approval of the Prime Minister may specify by order, the cases or classes of cases which may be disposed of by the Minister of State/Deputy Minister."

But examples are very rare where the Ministers-in-charge of ministries have, with the approval of the Prime Minister, specified by order the cases to be disposed of by the Ministers of State or Deputy Ministers in the relevant ministries. This has been the bone of contention between the Minister-in-charge of a ministry and the Minister of State/ Deputy Minister there since the early nineties. The relationship between the Minister-in-charge of a ministry and the Minister of State/Deputy Minister there has hardly been cordial. The press has reported many such incidents in the past. There was even an instance when a Minister of State did not attend his office in the ministry for months for not allocating any official work to him. The proposed bill, if passed, is expected to solve all such problems to a considerable extent.

A big Cabinet is not a sine qua non for running the government efficiently. In many countries including Bangladesh, a large Cabinet has rather proved otherwise. Particularly in Bangladesh we have the unique example of the non-party caretaker government consisting of the Chief Adviser at its head and not more than ten other Advisers. The last three non-party caretaker governments undoubtedly administered the country better than any other party government. The old saying "country and nation must get priority over party and party must get priority over individual" has not yet been able to influence our political parties and politicians. The sooner it materialises, the better it is for the country and the nation.

M.Abdul Latif Mondal is a former Secretary to the Government.