Administrative Reform
What could well have been a countrywide spate of administrative anarchy, as if the political stalemate was not enough of a worry already, has been thankfully averted. Prokrichi's Monday meeting with the Prime Minister has yielded a postponement of the agitation programme scheduled to begin from January 8 in protest against upgradation of 329 posts in the administration cadre.
It looked like a folly in common sense that one single cadre stood to benefit from a series of elevations while several other cadres under the same BCS tree were left out in the cold. Now, it seems, good sense has prevailed on both sides: Prokrichi, the 40-member coordination council of all other BCS cadres than the one-some Administration Cadre and the highest political authority in the country appears to be on positive territory.
Prokrichi has done well to decide not to hit the government below its belt and the government, for its part, has stepped out of the path of adhocism it had impudently taken - thanks to unsound advice from shortsighted, most probably, self-serving elements. In our previous editorial on the subject we wondered aloud as to why the more difficult yet the most vital task of service reorganisation stayed put on a back burner while a lot of alacrity is shown to dish out adhocism now and then which maybe pleased some but displeased most.
Therefore, our suggestion was for redoubled efforts to carry out the shelved administrative reforms which promise to put things on an even keel across the board. We are happy to note that the PM is leaving all the anomalies in the services to be removed by the Administrative Reforms Commission in due course. But can we help point out the dampers the Public Administration Reforms Commission has had to come through within a short span of its existence? Its first chairman Ayubur Rahman resigned in record short time and so has Fazlur Rahman, his replacement, who had reasons to be distraught with the disinterest shown in allotting a proper office to the commission, let alone providing other logistics.
We believe there is plenty in the file cabinet already by way of accumulated recommendations for service reorganisation and reform. Let these be dusted, looked up and utilised at the earliest.
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