Editorial
Sincerity is not enough
PM must get to the bottom of why implementation is low
TO mark the completion of the first year of her government, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed cabinet ministers and government officials to implement the plans undertaken by the government in sincere and swift manner. That, we take it, is a sign of the sense of urgency the prime minister and her cabinet colleagues have attached to the basic issue of governance a year into a renewal of democracy in Bangladesh. In addition to exhorting the cabinet and the civil administration on a quick implementation of the government's programmes, the prime minister has been speaking to the nation on the priorities and achievements of the government in the past year.
Sheikh Hasina's address to the nation, we believe, has been rather routine in nature. She has merely pointed to the successes of the government and has studiously avoided any mention of where it has stumbled or failed to deliver. She informed the nation that the Anti-Corruption Commission was working independently, a claim that does not match the reality on the ground. Indeed, the ACC has seen its wings clipped over the past year, a point the present chairman of the body has raised publicly. One other failing, which we have already pointed out in this column, is the systematic way in which local government has been kept on the sidelines, thus impeding its efficient functioning. More significantly and quite unnecessarily, the prime minister lambasted the opposition over its role in the past, a point that certainly does little to help matters. It is our belief, one we think we share with large sections of people in the country, that the prime ministerial speech should have outlined the specifics of the 'healthy, positive political trend' her government means to inaugurate instead of stating the obvious about the role played by the opposition when it was in power.
Everything said, however, one does appreciate Sheikh Hasina's providing the country with a balance sheet of the way her government has performed since taking charge last year. Her call for a speedy implementation of policies and programmes will be echoed by the nation as a whole. There is little question about her sincerity here, but sincerity and pious wishes are not enough to get the country up and running. A credible, satisfactory implementation of policies, programmes and projects will depend on a fulfilment of some vital conditions. In other words, it is on the presence or availability of procedures, processes, support mechanisms and methods on which the success of the government's plans will depend. The government must work out a clear strategy of how it means to guarantee services delivery, what degree of manpower it means to employ for the job and how it maintains law and order as necessary steps toward policy implementation.
Additionally and more crucially, a government's performance in our times is dependent on the presence of an administrative system not hostage to politicisation or subject to excessive centralisation. In this context, the prime minister and her administration must move swiftly toward initiating and implementing administrative reforms. A mere expression of intent is not enough. Over the past three decades, a raft of recommendations has been made about reforming the bureaucracy. It is time to go back to them and update them and, indeed, get things moving again. Only that will see a fulfilment of promises.
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