Editorial
Changes in the administration
A cautious approach urged
Politics has for a long number of years played havoc with civil administration and the careers of government officials at the senior levels. Perhaps some of the most glaring instances of a politicisation of the administration were noticed in the five years of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government, when officials were rewarded or punished, as the case may be, on the basis of their loyalties to the powers that were. One example is the mass promotion of 103 joint secretaries to the position of additional secretaries under that government. At the same time, there were an inordinately high number of OSDs (officers on special duty) under them.
We hope that such politicisation of the administration would be rolled back by the newly elected Awami League-led government. Unfortunately, the spate of changes that has been going on in different tiers of the administration belies that hope. In a rather sweeping move, the government has promoted 72 joint secretaries to the position of additional secretaries, ostensibly on the ground that these officers were deprived of promotion or were kept redundant during the BNP-Jamaat rule. It may be noted that 64 other joint secretaries have not been promoted. A number of them who are a qualified lot and against whom there were no complaints, have remained outside the purview of the promotions. In other words, it seems if the government was planning to separate the chaff from the grain, it does not appear to have done the job too well.
Now is the start-up time for the new government when the entire bureaucracy must function energetically to set the trends for good governance. As such, it would have been advisable for it to adopt a well thought-out, gradualist approach to civil service promotions and postings rather than a wholesale one which could betray a sense of reverse politicisation. Sweeping changes can only breed a sense of insecurity and result in low morale among government officials.
This government, it may be recalled, came to office on a mandate of change, indeed change for the better. That is why care must be taken that political loyalty does not work as a criterion for promotion in the administration. Let the image of the civil administration be raised to a point where officials' integrity does not come into question, despite the political changes the country may go through at regular intervals.
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