Politicial spell on bureaucracy

Sadrul Hasan Mazumder

Photo: AFP

Good governance concerns the decision-making processes and structures within the public sector, the "rules of play" through which the state pre-structures the scope for development by civil society and the private sector, as well as the relationship between government and those who are governed. It creates and institutionalises the scope within which people can develop and realise their life goals, as well as generating within society an acceptance of the state and its policies.

Good governance means good policy frameworks conducive to social justice and the responsible use of political power and public resources by the state. There can be no good governance without basic democratic principles and human rights; indeed, democracy and the political participation, which goes with it, are what generate and legitimate good governance in the first place.

Different international organisations and donors interpret the term good governance, its concrete implications for promotion, and the criteria that distinguish it from other areas of promotion, slightly differently, according to their own particular objectives, mandates and focal areas of work. The question of bureaucracy, corruption and aid on the other hand is a big one now a days and one of the big buzz words in the development field is "governance". Increasing politicisation of bureaucracy, gross corruption and inefficiency have been found as the three major stumbling blocks to good governance. Lack of proper recruitment and training has resulted in the bureaucracy being totally out of tune with the need of the globalised world and its highly competitive environment.

Many bureaucrats succumb to political pressure or indulge in partisan politics to hide their inefficiency and corruption. The former leads them to become partisan to save their job and the latter makes them corrupt.

The public servants of every cluster administrators, judicial officers and law enforcers remain politically neutral or at least they are supposed to in most of the developed countries. This happens just because of the statutory requirement of their non-political status and on the basis of tradition. Their appointment through constitutionally established neutral machinery mandated to act free from political pressure basically lay the foundation of bureaucratic neutrality.

Politicisation of bureaucracy started during the Pakistan period, especially during the military regimes. However, the trend acquired greater intensity in post-liberation period and posed a serious problem during last decade or so. In recent years, promotions in the civil service have seen more and more partisan approaches, which further politicised the administration. The politicians are the masters and bureaucracy must be subservient to a political government, but there must be a limit to the degree of interference by the latter. The political leaders must spell out what they expect from the bureaucracy and must not interfere in areas beyond their jurisdiction. And to ensure this participation of efficient and learned individuals in mainstream politics is essential.

A strong local government system as well as empowerment of local elected bodies is imperative for ensuring good governance and decentralisation of development activities. Creating an effective and efficient leadership at the grass roots level helps in the process of ensuring a sound decentralised effective administration. Skill of the local elected representatives, especially of the Women Members of the Union Parishad and Women Vice Chair of Upzila Parishad, should be enhanced through proper and function-specific training. The government itself should initiate and help the NGOs and CSOs to take up programmes to improve the quality of the leadership of the local elected representatives.

The political leaders did not steer the bureaucrats to right leadership and the politicians need to be better equipped with knowledge and experience to run the government. However, bureaucrats must also equally share the blame for the current mess in the administration. Bureaucrats as stated by the politicians create obstacles to the functioning of elected governments. Civil Society initiative helps bridging the gap between the political parties and the civil administrators, which can be ensured through various forms collaboration between the two agencies.

The government should ensure recruitment of quality people at the entry point, improve terms and conditions of service, inspire and boost the morale of officials and regularise promotion systems and keep bureaucracy free from politicisation. The standard of the defense services training institutions is better and our defence services impart better training than in many other countries, which has already been recognised by the United Nations. We should also provide at least the same level of training, even in some cases better training, to our civil bureaucracy. It is the nation's education policy, which can ensure efficient manpower for the country's mainstream development administration. Bureaucracy often resorts to partisan politics to hide their inefficiency and the only solution of such problems is to produce a set of good and efficient officers at the entry level. The existing available training system for the civil administration is poor and inadequate. Training methods are old and institutions are staffed with instructors lacking proper qualification, who are dumped there as punishment posting.

We have experienced the activities of bureaucracy during the tenure of Caretaker Government and it discharged the responsibilities as per oath of office the bureaucrats had taken. Although the activities of the caretaker government were highly criticised by different political parties in different periods, yet public confidence was there over the activities and outcomes of elections were recognised all over the world. But unfortunately the behaviour of the same group of people changes dramatically at the time of political governments. The changes most of the time reflect on the inefficiency and inability of the bureaucrats.

There are several countries with dubious distinction of corruption, lack of democracy and frequent changes of government. But the bureaucracy in those countries remains stable because the civil administration functions under its own chain of command led by the cabinet secretary. We have almost similar rules and regulations but these are not followed because of frequent interference by political leaders. We must ensure that promotion; posting and recruitment processes are free from interference by the political government for developing a stable and efficient bureaucracy.

The Public Service Commission should be made fully and genuinely independent and changes brought to its recruitment system to draw on properly qualified persons. Radical changes should be brought at the earliest possible time to arrest qualitative deterioration of bureaucracy. Otherwise development planning and initiatives of the political governments will go in vain. Such damaging erosion in the country's important driving agency and its deterioration can be greatly checked if the existing watchdogs and parliamentary standing committees operate properly. The parliamentary standing committees have started working with boldness and this could help leave an effective bureaucratic system in place provided these can really demand and enforce transparency and accountability on the part of every tier of government in their oversight capacity.
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Sadrul Hasan Mazumder is Program Manager of Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers' Association (BNWLA)

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