Editorial
Administrative shake-up
Wholesale reshuffle can be counterproductive
FOR the civil administration to suffer from uncertainty and transfer phobia is not a healthy sign. But that is what the state of the civil bureaucracy is at the moment.
It is unfortunate that the phenomenon has been repetitive; with every change of government since 1991 we have seen large-scale transfer, officers made OSD, promotions that had bypassed many rather unfairly, and premature retirement, in varying degrees, but enough to sap the spirit of the civil servants.
Just to put the matter in perspective, apart from the changes in appointment of seven secretaries, five additional secretaries and 34 joint secretaries recently, several such changes have been made in the last two months. Regrettably, the Grand Alliance seems to be following the bad example set by the past government of 4-party alliance, which during its tenure had prematurely retired more than five hundred officers of various ranks including from the police, and had kept more than seven hundred officers as OSD till the time of its relinquishment of power to a caretaker government in October 2006.
Such indiscriminate and wholesale changes usually prove counterproductive. It appears to us that the postings and transfers are following no rational pattern in the professional sense as these are being done in a rather haphazard manner. One could almost discern favouritism, unfairness, and even victimisation through marginalisation in some of the changes. The net result could be a general demoralisation among the civil servants.
We accept that in the past some civil servants had excelled in demonstrating their loyalty to the party in power. They served with partisan outlook to the detriment of state interest and outclassed party men in their loyalty to the party in power. That might hold some rationale for a little shuffling and changing here and there, but what we are witnessing now appears to be crossing the threshold of normal postings and transfers and may be interpreted as reverse politicisation.
Politicisation of the bureaucracy is totally unacceptable, and the government must come down hard on those civil servants who try to gain undue favours of the government by trying to show their loyalty to the party in power. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy has been split along AL-BNP lines, and the two major parties must take the major share of the responsibility for such a state of affairs. Should the AL do anything that might belie its call for change in governance?
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