The state of the nation

As soon as TI's corruption perception index is reported it becomes instant global news. The NY Times wrote: "In Bangladesh, government agencies siphoned off a reported $68 million through corruption last year. Government officials [ministers] and senior bureaucrats were blamed in 72 percent of the cases involving misuse of public funds." No sooner had the ink of the NYT dried, came the slap that: "The World Bank (WB) has cancelled loans worth Tk. 6.8 crore against three projects in health and local government sectors on grounds of corruption and asked the government to refund the money already spent against these loans." (DS: November 8).

Sometimes I wonder, how do the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister travel to foreign lands and face other leaders and dignitaries with so much of stigma, indignities, and negativities in their administration's credentials. Many of us here in the US were bemused by the Prime Minister's October 10 speech to the nation and are convinced that she may not be reading newspapers and are encircled by "tabaydars" (courtiers) and toadies, who are feeding her with elusive success stories of her administration.

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This article is not about corruption per se, it is about the absence of leadership and existence of inefficiencies in every sector of state operation in which corruption has the most incapacitating effects. Speaking about leadership, both the former PM Sheikh Hasina and the current PM Khaleda Zia have failed even to be an effectual leader of their own party -- each failing to keep the party as one cohesive unit -- let alone becoming the nation's leader.

A leader is one who leads or guides and is in charge or in command of others; who has influence or power, especially of a political nature. A leader always takes responsibility for failures and rarely tries to find scapegoats. Based on these leadership traits and her government's last five years of degenerating performance in almost every sphere of national life, can we consciously hail Khaleda as a national leader? Unlike President Zia, she does not enjoy the reputation of her immediate family members being incorruptible and not meddling in the affairs of the state and her party. In fact, it is widely alleged that her son and her brother are the power behind all the big wheeling and dealings that are set out inside the Hawa Bhaban.

An example of how inefficiently the country's resources are squandered is that there are nearly 70 ministers including state and deputy ministers and a few advisors with some form of ministerial status.

In the parliament, 83 percent of the MPs are businessmen. Many of them have no legitimate business address or listing. A great majority of them are literally vacuous and political neophytes, having little or no understanding of the rudiments of lawmaking, economics, and national policies. When the parliament is in recess, these MPs are seen loitering in the corridors of power looking for wheeling and dealing opportunities for themselves or for their cronies.

There are not too many countries where a chartered accountant would become a Finance Minister, presenting eleven national budgets in a row, achieving hardly any success in poverty alleviation or increased GDP growth, an economist (Ph.D) with WB experience would become Education Minister instead of Finance Minister, a geologist (Ph.D) would become a Health Minister instead of Minister of Natural Resources, an Air Marshall would become Commerce Minister instead of Aviation or Communication Minister, to name just a few of the most inappropriate portfolio assignments.

To be fair, give some credit to the Prime Minister that the Law Minister is not a medical doctor, and the Science and Technology Minister is not a lawyer. It is really surprising that the Finance Minister and the Central Bank Governor have no prior expertise in financial markets or monetary and open economy macro-economics.

What is even more abstruse is that senior civil servants are shuffled arbitrarily among ministries and departments by the stroke of a pen without the wisdom of realisation that there is a learning curve in the new job, loss of valuable experience gained in the previous one, and thus a serious compromise on efficiency.

Over the last five years political expediency and pacification of civil service cadres appear to have become the primary basis of promotion to higher posts -- a debilitating source of inefficiency.

The people in Bangladesh has been bedeviled by ill-governance for most of its 34 years of existence while the Asian Tigers, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and South Korea are marching ahead with opulence and pride. The reasons, like it or not, are simple and direct:

• Our politicians have collectively contributed directly and/or indirectly to eroding the foundations of democracy, governance, rule of law, transparency, and social justice.
• Ruling party politicians, the wheelers and dealers, have always hailed, rewarded, and supported the civil servants who have historically nurtured the tree of corruption and inefficiency in the system.
• Public complacency and elasticity of tolerance encouraged the powerful elite to revel in inefficiency, waste and corruption, thus stultifying the opportunities and prospects for development.

The recent salary increase of civil servants by nearly 53 percent and those of ministers and law makers by 45 percent did not bring in any gain in efficiency in terms of improved work ethics and added incentives to be more productive and less corruptible. While they kept doing their usual wheeling and dealings the result of salary hikes, as the WB and IMF warned, have been transforming into higher inflation marching towards 10 percent and possibly higher and making the poor citizens' plight nightmarish.

The government is growing bigger by the day, breeding

corruption and inefficiency in bureaucracy. The typical government response each year is to ask for a larger budget. The basic incentive structure of government agencies engenders inefficient management because, unlike the free market system, there is a lack of inducement to be cost-conscious and innovative. Instead, the hallmark of bureaucrats is to be extremely cautious and make all decisions by the book. Such behaviour may maximise official norms, but it usually fails to minimise costs, attain efficiency and maximise public welfare.

Lack of effective leadership and compromising of efficiency in managing external funds for MDG and PRSP has scored fifth worst ranking (only next to Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger, and Madagascar) for Bangladesh in failing to alleviate poverty which has caused an assortment of repercussions in the WB and the IMF. Because of dreadful inefficiency and waste, poverty alleviation is progressing only at 0.52 percent, well below the target rate of 2.2 percent.

Because of administrative ineptitude and inefficiencies in every sphere of state affairs, creativity had been pushed aside as the politicians accolade mediocrity through politicisation wherever they could get their hands on and heads in. To halt further degeneration, the following five exigencies are worth noting:

• It is highly unlikely that the wheelers and dealers once reelected (regardless of parties) will operate any differently in restoring good governance domestically and country's image internationally. Hence, there is little chance that the people will escape from the fulsome stigma of being the most corrupt country any time soon. The country needs new faces with vision.
• Politicians cannot do their wheeling and dealings without the tacit acquiescence and sycophancy of the civil servants. Therefore, the country must hope that one day some civil servants of character will act as loyal servants of the people instead of their bosses.
• The country needs a true leader with the dedication and a sense of mission who will reform the civil service to produce squarely competent and honest civil servants and recruit politicians with character.
• This leader will be expected to govern justly, espouse the rule of law, pursue a reform agenda with veracity, and rekindle hope in the people.
• Finally, this leader will command respect and influence abroad to help in attracting FDI and building confidence in the minds of aid sponsors, the World Bank and the IMF.

Since independence, whichever party came to power, its grass-roots supporters, including student leaders and the highest echelons of the party, assumed that it was their turn to rule and loot the country. Inefficiency, waste, and lack of leadership have put the government literally up for sale. The ruling party's pretensions of not seeing what every one else sees and not realising what everyone else realises have brought us to where we are today.

Dr. Abdullah A. Dewan is Professor of Economics, Eastern Michigan University, USA.