The people of independent Bangladesh dreamt of a democratic state that would protect the fundamental rights granted to them by the constitution which was enacted on November 4, 1972 and came into force on December 16 of the same year. People first saw infringement upon their fundamental rights and democracy with the adoption of Constitution (Second Amendment) Act, 1973 and the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1975, the former providing for suspension of fundamental rights through insertion of emergency provisions and the latter replacing multi-party parliamentary democracy with one-party dictatorial presidential system of government.

The arbitrariness, whimsicality and capriciousness, which are important traits of irresponsibility, of the top leadership of the then ruling AL thus led to the demise of the parliamentary democracy within a period of less than three years from its introduction and stalled the growth of democracy in the newly independent country.

Reintroduction of parliamentary democracy in 1991 after 15 plus years of dictatorial military and presidential rules through the Constitution (Twelfth Amendment) Act has not as yet demonstrated success in giving democracy a strong foundation due to the confrontational politics of the BNP and the AL that have been ruling the country in succession since 1991.

Personal animosity between Sheikh Hasina, the AL president and daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of the nation, and Begum Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of the BNP and wife of Ziaur Rahman, a liberation war hero who read out the proclamation of independence over the radio, their accusing each other irresponsibly and their uncompromising attitude towards the burning national issues like reforming the caretaker system of government, the Election Commission and the electoral laws, coupled with their desire to establish a dynastic rule, have made the whole nation hostage and put the nascent democracy at stake.

Administrative irresponsibility has been widespread among the political masters and the civil servants. Since independence, the successive political governments have meticulously taken necessary steps to patronise "their men" in the administration. Patronisation has generally taken the following forms: (a) appointing the activists of the student-wing of the party in power as well as the relatives of the political masters to the cadre and non-cadre posts in the civil service; (b) making and unmaking rules for giving the party supporters and relatives of the political masters promotion to the key posts in the Bangladesh secretariat, commonly known as the seat of the government; (c) giving the party loyalists prized postings at home and abroad; and (d) giving contractual appointment to such of the retired loyal officials who shall exist only to carry out the orders of the political masters.

As a result of such irresponsible behaviour of the political party/parties in power from time to time, the civil servants have come to be designated as inefficient, ineffective, corrupt and partisan. We thus find the prime minister recently regretting: "The documents once prepared at the tables of deputy secretaries and joint secretaries are now being done through appointment of consultants."

Sometimes, certain activities of many civil servants, particularly at the higher echelon of the administration, speak of their irresponsible behaviour. On February 4, one Dhaka daily carried a report under the headline: "Bureaucrats pay little heed to JS body advice" which said that secretaries of most of the ministries did not follow the Public Accounts Committee's decision to place in the committee's meeting on February 2 the audit objections that remained un-discussed by the committee between financial year 1971-72 and 1989-90.

A Dhaka weekly in its January 9, 2006 issue carried a special report which said that on the invitation of a professional tadbirbaj, more than one hundred senior government officials, including over a dozen secretaries to the government, attended a merry-making function arranged at Chandra, Gazipur on January 4. By attending such a function, the concerned officials not only violated the government servants' conduct rules, but also compromised their job pride. More such instances may be cited.

Those who have the authority to incur any expenditure or enter into any liability involving expenditure from public funds must exercise their prudence in doing so. For incurring or authorising expenditure from public funds, emphasis has to be given on the following principles:

-- The authorised person will exercise the same vigilance in respect of expenditure from public moneys as a person of ordinary prudence will exercise in respect of expenditure of his own money.

-- The expenditure should not be prima facie more than the occasion demands.

-- No authority should exercise its powers of sanctioning expenditure to pass an order which will be directly or indirectly to its own advantage.

-- The amount of allowances granted to meet expenditure of a particular type should be so regulated that the allowances are not on the whole a source of profit to the recipients.

But, we often come across media reports regarding misuse of authority for incurring or authorising expenditure from public funds.

The media has recently reported about the chief whip Khandaker Delwar Hossain's lavish entertainment bill. Commenting on the issue, The Bangladesh Observer in its editorial on March 14 wrote: "The issue is distasteful to say the least. It hurts to comment on such a bizarre matter involving the Jatiya Sangsad's Chief Whip Khondker Delwar Hossain. But we are helpless. If someone in that position does not feel ashamed to take all the daily necessaries for his residence, at least the nation should. We do not know how much the party that has nominated him to the position wants to trample the image of the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) and the country. As the Prothom Alo reports, two lists of victuals and daily necessaries are sent to the JS VIP cafeteria each month enough for two families for a whole month. No answer to why provisions of almost the same amount on two lists are required is however available."

In its editorial on March 17, The Daily Star commented: "The drawing of entertainment allowance by the chief whip's office at the rate of Tk one lakh per month in provisions and cash from the Parliament Cafeteria has caught our attention. During the last eight months of the fiscal 2005/2006 the chief whip has drawn nearly Tk 8 lakh as compared with Tk one and half lakh on an average by other whips. The way the chief whip has defended himself against the expose has betrayed an insensitivity on his part to the seriousness of the issue at hand. He says he has not committed any act of illegality, a claim which of course is expected to go through scrutiny under the financial rules in due course; but it is certainly a question of ethics, morality and, above all, propriety that has been given rise to. Little wonder, some of the former whips have described the matter of drawing rations for his residence by the chief whip as unheard of and unprecedented."

Irresponsibility is noticed even in our macro-level planning and in the inclusion of projects in the annual development programme. The finance and planning minister M. Saifur Rahman is on record to admit that populist or vote-oriented projects are getting priority over schemes that are really important for the economic development of the country.

The nation is going through a severe crisis. The economic plight of the country has reached unprecedented levels with the persisting problems of fuel scarcity and price spiral of essentials coupled with problems of politics and militancy. And there is no end in sight to the plight of the common man. The governor of the Bangladesh Bank has reportedly said that he does not understand why there is a foreign currency crisis in the country. If he does not understand, the relevant question is: who knows?

Inattention to workplace safety has resulted in a number of tragedies in the country's garments industry. According to International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF), in the five years prior to 2000, there were 30 fires in the garments industry of Bangladesh which claimed over 250 lives. The ITGLWF apprehension of massive disasters in the country's garments factories came true with the recent devastating fire in the KTS Composite Textile Mill in Chittagong and collapse of a multi-storey building in Dhaka. Mentionable that last year, after the Spectrum Factory collapse at Savar, the ITGLWF in an investigative report warned that such tragedy could have happened in any one of 1,000 other factories and a similar accident would soon happen again unless something was done immediately. But the irresponsible garments factory owners paid little heed to that advice.

It appears from the above discussion that irresponsibility has been adversely affecting the nation's growth and development in its various spheres. But this menace has so far received little attention of the academics, the civil society members and the media. The earlier we all shun our irresponsible behaviour, the better it is for the nation.

M. Abdul Latif Mondal is a former Secretary to the Government.