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![]() From better governance to Din Bodol -- Rehman Sobhan National consensus and unity for change -- Dr. Kamal Hossain The state, culture and society -- Serajul Islam Chowdhury Extra-mile the ruling party has to go -- Dr. Syed Anwar Husain Political culture and its impact on governance -- Enam A Chaudhury Political party finance--Muzaffer Ahmad Women of Bangladesh: where are they? -- Nasim Firdaus Women's role in politics- Quantity and quality -- Sultana Kamal To combat violence against women-- Mahmuda Husain The case of local government-- Tofail Ahmed Withdrawal of Cases Where is the end--Dr.Sarkar Ali Akkas A challenge for political management -- Rounaq Jahan Right to information: Status of implementation -- Shaheen Anam Reforms for democratic consolidation -- Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar Provenance of administrative reforms -- Dr. Saadat Husain Parliamentary committees Moving from form to substance -- Farid Hossain Politicial spell on bureaucracy -- Sadrul Hasan Mazumder Carrying forward the RTI -- Sanjida Sobhan Governance in the new millennium -- Mahbub Husain Khan Boycott culture crippling parliament --Shakhawat Liton Can we expect an effective ACC? -- Iftekharuzzaman Sycophancy is a two-way road -- Mohammad Badrul Ahsan Three years since 1/11: Expectation vs. reality -- Syed Munir Khasru Police and politics -- ASM Shahjahan Leaky drainage infrastructure of the capital city -- Ershad Kamol Reducing the horrendous traffic congestion -- Dr. Charisma Choudhury Implementation of Dhaka city Master Plan -- Salma A. Shafi
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Governance in the new millennium Mahbub Husain Khan
One year of the Awami League government is just over. Many columns, reports and editorials have been written in the print media on the successes and shortcomings of this one year of governance. It is now time to look forward to the future. But like Janus, the Roman god who could look both forward and backward at the same time, look forward we must, but also learn from the lessons of the past. The statistics show that the existing manpower in the government is more than double compared with that in 1972; the increase in the size for government has outstripped the increase in the population during that period. The promises of various governments in power to pursue policies to strengthen the market economy, generate more employment in the private sector, and downsize government, seem to have run aground. There are many lessons to be learned from the British experience in governance in the 1980s, during the era of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. It shows, for example, that reinvention requires collaboration between elected officials and civil servants between what we call the political and institutional sectors. There were many things the civil servants would never have done on their own, and there were an equal number of things the politicians would never have seen on their own. Both sides had their blind spots. In order to understand how to get rid of the effects of a large bureaucracy, we must remind ourselves that there was once a time when bureaucracy as a system of organisation was enthusiastically embraced by the economically advanced countries of the world, in both government and industry. While public administrative systems have existed since taxes were invented, Max Weber is generally credited with having defined bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society' (1922). Weber described a system of organisation based on a rational structure, with a clear hierarchical chain of command, a formal delineation of functions, and a body of rules. Staff would be selected for their ability, paid fixed salaries and promoted by seniority and merit; they would be expected to conduct them selves as objective professionals. These principles no longer seem unusual or noteworthy, but in their time they were an innovation. Corrupt officials, arbitrary decisions, and blatant patronage in the allocation of government jobs were commonplace. Even today, citizens in many countries like ours would love to have governments that were rationally organised, with clearly defined functions, and civil servants at many levels and in many agencies expecting bribes as a way of expediting the bureaucratic processes. There are now no fields of daily endeavour where the public do not have to come into an interaction with public servants. In our diplomatic representation abroad also, as in the expanding national bureaucracy, quite the wrong rationale has been applied to keep on increasing the staff at various embassies in different countries. In the present world, the priorities of trade are to be given primary consideration. And for us, political considerations are nowadays limited to the SAARC countries alone. Despite these evident considerations at hand, new embassies are opened, and staff at embassies increased, possibly only to accommodate the increasingly recruited foreign office personnel, or to hand out political rewards. Ultimately, the priority objectives of improving trade and economic relations get lost in the ponderous paraphernalia of our diplomatic institutions abroad. In our country, the state provides most education and training. It supports critical research and technological development, and controls the institutions that regulate capital market and labour, it also provides or regulates infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications. The efficiencies of public agencies for health and social welfare greatly affect comparative tax levels. Our bureaucratic government is a classical functional organisation. Each ministry or department is a world unto itself. None of the strategic issues of our society in the present day is suited to this structure. Yet, this structure is getting bloated day by day with new additions to newly recruited personnel and lateral entrants. Ministries and departments are proliferating. As Parkinson has said, work has expanded to encompass the number of increasing personnel. There is no easily defined course of action. We have to accept the facts of bureaucratic stasis and unnecessary personnel proliferation as the basic flaws of all organisations. Of these fundamental tendencies the national government, university and college administrations, even the trade unions in the public organisations are deeply and constantly aware. The case now has to be fought for entrepreneurial government, where more can be done indirectly than directly. The government should aim to be a catalyst, to steer, rather than row. It should mobilise private resources to accomplish public objectives. Secondly, the government should seek to empower communities rather than serve them. Various areas under the Dhaka Municipal Corporation may be empowered to improve their local services and education and healthcare with advice from the municipality funds given to improve social conditions, under the supervision of the ward commissioners, instead of centralised organisation for the municipal services. Thirdly, competition in public service has the same effect as competition everywhere; quality gets better and costs go down. For example, in the bloated bureaucracy of Bangladesh Biman, if we cut down on personnel, pay the remaining selected ones adequately, and promote and financially reward them according to results, the quality of service is bound to improve. Fourthly, rule driven organisations have to be transformed to 'mission driven' ones. There has to be flexibility to meet unexpected problems in fulfilling the organisation's objectives. The related principle is result oriented government, which means funding outcomes not inputs. In healthcare, for example, the priority should be to create conditions for good health, while saving money on the healthcare system that may be transferred to the private sector more and more. Fifthly, the government should try to please the clientele, not the bureaucracy, and related to this is, focus on earning rather than spending. The sixth principle should be anticipation; as the examples of flood, cyclones, diseases and the environment show, it is cheaper to prevent than cure. The seventh is, it is cheaper to prevent than to cure, and the eighth is the problem of decentralisation that we must address urgently. Finally, we have to use the market to force change. Market incentives can increase employment, and help in the downsizing of the government, and relieve the pressure on government for public employment. Also, important matters like environmental controls can be more effectively applied through market forces. Thinking about governance without bureaucracy requires some reference to politics also. Parliamentary institutions can only function where there is respect for parliamentary tradition. One must overcome both the weight of traditional and partisan suspicions. In a government orgnaised to deal with key issues, the role and responsibilities of cabinet ministers would change. If public servants are to be permitted to experiment, we must be willing to tolerate error. If we wish to hold governments responsible for outcomes rather than inputs, we will need new institutions that measure results objectively. If we want timely decisions, the decision making processes must be redesigned. In order to modernise, redesign and downsize our bureaucracy three things are required - parliamentarians who recognise that the status quo must change, a prime minister who is willing to sponsor, in a non partisan spirit, the attempt to discover new approaches, and a mechanism to involve leaders from our society in that effort. The voters in future elections should be convinced that we can afford to maintain and improve upon the public services, but we cannot just afford to have them delivered by an old style bureaucracy. |
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