Forty years of "yes ministership"

Mahbub Hussain Khan

On March 26, 1972, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his address to the nation referred to prevalent administrative structure thus :

“ We inherited a provincial administrative service set-up which is unfit for an independent nation .Some of the bureaucrats cannot yet shake off their colonial mentality .We are advising them to comprehend the real meaning of an independent nation .We hope that their past orientation will change for the better . My government will reorganize the sate machinery in line with a new country and new society .In the proposed structure , attempts will be made to bring the government servants closer to the people .We have also chalked out plans to upgrade all subdivisions into districts …. (Based on 'Bangabandhur Bhashan', edited by Mizanur Rahman Mizan)

As is well known, after Liberation , the Awami Lague and their philosophical supporters acted together for the adoption of the principles of liberal democracy with a socialistic orientation . In February 1975, this evolved to a form of one--party rule. Then on August 15, the greatest of tragedies befell our nation when the father of the nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in a military uprising by some army officers, and his government was overthrown. Subsequently, the military regime under General Ziaur Rahman, that ultimately took over the government, adopted a liberal attitude for running the economy, and ruled the country with the help of the civil bureaucracy. From early 1979, a gradual transition to a somewhat controlled form of democracy took place. In early 1980, General Ziaur Rahman was killed in another military uprising. But this was quashed, and Vice President Sattar could hold elections and become president. However, in March 1982, the democratically elected government under President Sattar was removed through a bloodless military coup, executed by General Ershad who was the Chief of Army Staff.

In 1986 and 1988 two elections to the parliament took place, besides electing General Ershad as President for a five-year term from 1986. The mass uprising of 1990 removed him and in 1991, the BNP came to power in the parliamentary elections, with Awami League as the main opposition party. Since 1991, power has alternated between BNP and Awami League in the elections held in the country since the fall of Ershad.

This brief review of history , very familiar to the readers , has been presented in order to explain the backgrounds of various decisions taken in connection with the Civil Service in Bangladesh and its evolution in the forty years of Bangladesh's history .

Most obviously, after Liberation, a predominantly provincial administrative set-up had to be suitably transformed to take on the desirable characteristics of a national administration. Within this general condition, the specifics included the merging of central government ministries and Provincial Government departments and the most important and knotty problem of the merging of the Central and Provincial services.

Photo: Star Archive

Structure of the national administration
The administrative framework was not disturbed much, and the principal officers working in the secretariat continued to work as secretaries, additional secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries and assistant secretaries. The executing agencies which were the attached departments, and its subordinate offices continued to function as before. In the field, the tiers of divisions , districts, and sub-divisions were kept intact till the time the sub-divisions became districts -- 68 in number now -- and thanas became upazillas , 495 in number. In 1992, however, the upazillas reverted back to thanas , as part of the then government's policy. The district again became the focal point of field administration. With a doubling of the population since 1971 , the present delimitation of districts and upazillas is much more manageable from the point of view of deployment of officers and progress of implementation and monitoring of government policies and projects at the field level.

While the central services inherited by Bangladesh had a recognisable and operable structure , the provincial services had as many as 24 regularly constituted services classified as generalist, specialist and functional services. There were four classes along with higher and lower scales in Class I and II . The pay scales of the provincial services were generally lower than similar services under the Central Government in Pakistan. Obviously the integration of various services into an unified cadre was going to prove cumbersome -- and open to much criticism whatever be the basic formula devised and adhered to.

The transformed socio-poilitical environment of the country, in particular the birth of a country through a sanguinary nine-month war, did not favour the continued dominance of an elitist Civil Service. Though other socialist countries, generally speaking, tended to monolithic bureaucracies, Bangladesh, the latest entrant to the socialist fold, did not reconcile itself to an over-emphasised role of the civil bureaucracy and -- for four years or so -- the army bureaucracy.

The considerable jealousies and rivalries between the then provincial and central service officers were fueled by motivated and interested quarters, and kept alive by the preponderance of the provincial service officers in the country.

The functionalists and specialists also criticised the existing rigidity of services and made public demands that they be allowed to move easily from functional areas to administrative positions. One of the initial ideas revolved around recruiting and training political cadres to take over the administrative leadership and coordination role at various tiers of field administration. To this end recruitment was made in 1973 though viva-voce examinations and district governors.

It was felt that only political cadres with firm roots amongst the people and motivated by these new ideologies could mobilize the masses and transform the pattern of their behaviour to a more political and development oriented attitude. This perspective was further reinforced by the thinking of the intelligentsia and other influential circles that the new country needs a different model of Civil Service organization to lead the socio-economic development process into the twenty-first century.

Reforms
For the forty years of the civil service in Bangladesh, its evolution was partly a process of reform and reorganization measures. The first attempt at reform was initiated through the setting up of the Administrative and Services Reorganisation Committee in early 1972. This committee was to determine recruitment to services , amalgamation of existing cadres into an unified structure and reorganization of the administrative machinery. The recommendations were submitted in 1973. The Committee made the normal observations that the inherited service structure was inadequate for the needs of the new country. The administrative structure was regulatory rather than development and welfare oriented. The recommendations of the Administrative and Services Reorganisation Committee, reinforced by the National Pay Commission, proposed the introduction of a single, unified, classless grading structure with ten grades of pay and no reservation of any post for any cadre. The implementation of these recommendations rain into difficulties and it is said that some concerned quarters conspired to jettison the report .However, in 1976, a new commission was set up by General Ziaur Rahman and the report of this Pay and Services Commission came out in 1977. The report nullified the claims of the generalists for elitist treatment and advocated the creation of technocratic cadres with equal pay, status and participation in decision-making

The government, in 1977, introduced 21 grades of services with corresponding scales of pay. All positions in the civil services were fitted into 21 mutually exclusive hierarchical grades .Again there was resistance from various groups of government employees since further anomalies between existing services were created at different levels. The government instituted a Review Committee, and introduced modified new scales of pay, retaining the basic framework.

One of the recommendations of the Pay and Services Commission was to set up a Senior Policy Pool comprising the top levels of administration hierarchy which would operate as a 'think-tank' and provide executive leadership in the government services. All secretaries, additional secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries were encadred in the Pool from the beginning of 1979 with some exceptions. The Senior Policy Pool was envisaged as an open structure, and an answer to the complaints of technocrats, specialists, and other functional services. Theoretically, this meant that the Civil Services of Bangladesh had evolved into an unified services structure and was a classless entity from this point of time

Immediately after assuming state authority, General Ershad concentrated on administrative reforms and appointed two major committees, namely the Martial Law Committee (MLC) and the Committee for Administrative Reform and Reorganization ( CARR). The MLC was entrusted with the responsibility of examining organizational set-ups of ministries and divisions ,and the departments and offices under them and to recommend measures to improve efficiency of the organizations manned by the civil service officers .Drastic measures were suggested by these two committees to quicken the decision -making process in the secretariat , which included reduction in the number of ministries and divisions and also civil servants , mostly at the lower levels, along with scaling down in the layers of decision-making . There was also suggestions for formalization and regularization of the recruitment process and delegation of financial and administrative powers down the hierarchy.

The Awami League government also set up a Public Administration were appointed in the beginning of 1975. The main argument for this philosophy of administration and recruitment in the civil service was that the traditional structure originating far back in history and gradually evolving into the present format could not suit the ideologies of a country that came to life through war. It was felt that only political cadres with firm roots amongst the people and motivated by these new ideologies could mobilize the masses and transform the pattern of their behaviour to a more political and development oriented attitude. This perspective was further reinforced by the thinking of the intelligentsia and other influential circles that the new country needs a different model of Civil Service organization to lead the socio-economic development process into the twenty-first century.

Reforms
For the forty years of the civil service in Bangladesh, its evolution was partly a process of reform and reorganization measures. The first attempt at reform was initiated through the setting up of the Administrative and Services Reorganisation Committee in early 1972. This committee was to determine recruitment to services , amalgamation of existing cadres into an unified structure and reorganization of the administrative machinery. The recommendations were submitted in 1973. The Committee made the normal observations that the inherited service structure was inadequate for the needs of the new country. The administrative structure was regulatory rather than development and welfare oriented. The recommendations of the Administrative and Services Reorganisation Committee, reinforced by the National Pay Commission, proposed the introduction of a single, unified, classless grading structure with ten grades of pay and no reservation of any post for any cadre. The implementation of these recommendations rain into difficulties and it is said that some concerned quarters conspired to jettison the report .However, in 1976, a new commission was set up by General Ziaur Rahman and the report of this Pay and Services Commission came out in 1977. The report nullified the claims of the generalists for elitist treatment and advocated the creation of technocratic cadres with equal pay, status and participation in decision-making

The government, in 1977, introduced 21 grades of services with corresponding scales of pay. All positions in the civil services were fitted into 21 mutually exclusive hierarchical grades .Again there was resistance from various groups of government employees since further anomalies between existing services were created at different levels. The government instituted a Review Committee, and introduced modified new scales of pay, retaining the basic framework.

One of the recommendations of the Pay and Services Commission was to set up a Senior Policy Pool comprising the top levels of administration hierarchy which would operate as a 'think-tank' and provide executive leadership in the government services. All secretaries, additional secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries were encadred in the Pool from the beginning of 1979 with some exceptions. The Senior Policy Pool was envisaged as an open structure, and an answer to the complaints of technocrats, specialists, and other functional services. Theoretically, this meant that the Civil Services of Bangladesh had evolved into an unified services structure and was a classless entity from this point of time

Immediately after assuming state authority, General Ershad concentrated on administrative reforms and appointed two major committees, namely the Martial Law Committee (MLC) and the Committee for Administrative Reform and Reorganization (CARR). The MLC was entrusted with the responsibility of examining organizational set-ups of ministries and divisions ,and the departments and offices under them and to recommend measures to improve efficiency of the organizations manned by the civil service officers .Drastic measures were suggested by these two committees to quicken the decision -making process in the secretariat , which included reduction in the number of ministries and divisions and also civil servants , mostly at the lower levels, along with scaling down in the layers of decision-making . There was also suggestions for formalization and regularization of the recruitment process and delegation of financial and administrative powers down the hierarchy.

The Awami League government also set up a Public Administration Reforms Commission (PARC) to deal with the problems faced by the central government and the civil service structure . However it did not come up with any report during Awami League's incumbency and also during the present tenure

Photo: Liton rahman/drik news

Decentralisation
The various governments , whatever their socio-political philosophies , have always felt and acted to implement a mechanism for the decentralization of administration and the evolution of a development strategy for the administration to reach the grassroots . General Ershad , when he seized power , took up the idea of decentralisation and set up CARR , which was entrusted with the responsibility of recommending an appropriate and effective administrative system based upon the devolution of authority and people's participation in the administrative processes.

The recommendations of CARR included a directly elected chairman and a representative council at zilla, upazilla and union levels , with the elected chairman as the chief coordinator supported by government personnel .

The recommendations of CARR included a directly elected chairman and a representative council at zilla, upazilla and union levels , with the elected chairman as the chief coordinator supported by government personnel .

These elected councils were to have full functional control over the government officials and with adequate devolution of administrative, financial and judicial powers at the zilla and upazilla levels . The implementation of these recommendations resulted in the creation of upazilla administration at the local level.

When the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power in 1991 , the upazilla system was scrapped on the grounds that it had not attained noticeable progress in the socio-economic development of the country due to corruption by the upazilla functionaries. The BNP government constituted a commission to conduct a fresh inquiry into the state of local government , and to recommend measures consistent with the spirit of Article 59 and 60 of the Constitution.

This committee recommended the reorganization of the union parishad and the zilla parishad. Before the suggested reform measures could be implemented , the BNP government stepped down and new elections were held .

When Awami League came back to power in 1996, the government again appointed a commission to reorganize the local government system. To strengthen the local government system , the commission stressed the need for creating a permanent local government commission , independent of executive control , to supervise , review , control and monitor functions of the local government units and to suggest appropriate measures.

The future scenario
What has the civil service evolved into in the first decade of the new millennium? An apparently unified civil service, with bickering amongst the constituents of the services. As of now, the functioning of the civil service reflects a pervasive 'clientalism', operating within clearly defined hierarchies. This has been further aggravated during the 1980s by the absorption of active or retired military officers into various BCS cadres such as the administration, foreign services and the police .The civil officers resist this on the grounds that the defence services have been manned by officers on totally different premises and appointment processes.

On the compensation side, salaries have increased substantially since the 1990s .Yet this is far from what should be paid to elicit efficient and honest service from the incumbents, particularly as in the new millennium, the private sector has become employers with 'deep pockets.' Whilst civil service pay-scales of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are equally inadequate, at least they are on much more realistic levels.

Training at the PATC and the BCS Academy, while adequate, is yet to be innovative and challenging for the entrants, and definitely does not add a whole lot to their span of knowledge and experience. All this has acted in concert to produce unexceptional quality of candidates being recruited since 1979, the first regular year of entry in the BCS Administration cadre.

It is therefore not a question of who will get promoted to the top posts , who will get the bigger slice of the cake .This cannot be the obsession of a nation or its political leadership who should insist on getting the best man for the job , and should not opt for a solution of 'majority compromise'.

Suggestions for a meritorious bureaucracy
There are complacent people and society leaders who claim that the only thing wrong with us is the stasis in economic development. Institutions such as the Parliament, the judiciary, the Administration -- should not be tinkered with. They could not be more wrong. These inter-related institutions have to achieve economic development through concerted efforts and self-advancement as institutions , otherwise it may sound like doomsday our institutions will be riddled with the pox of corruption and high-handedness , industries will wither away, our trading partners will not welcome us , and our neighbours will lose their trust in us .

We need innovative ideas fast for updating the bureaucracy . Here are some conventional, oft repeated suggestions that the decision-making authorities -- particularly in the Prime Minister's Secretariat may care to consider:

1) The best talents of the country must be recruited for the administrative services through rigorous recruitment procedures

2) Compensation packages and career advancement prospects have to be adequate in comparison with equivalent private sector employment and employment abroad.

3) Initial training has to be professional and thorough. Foreign training should be imparted at the beginning of the career for effective exposure to the current and advanced management techniques and their absorption at a stage when the mind is receptive.

4) The training institutions have to be strengthened, and not used as dumping grounds for out-of-favour civil servants.

5) Lateral entrants into the decision-making cadres must be selected with the same rigour applied to the initial entrants.

6) Local government bodies have to be steered by elected executives aided by young professional administrators .

7) The political leadership must be advised by the best administrative talents on a non-partisan basis .

Both in the secretariat and in the field , the efforts of any government in power will have to be concentrated on making the publics servant optimally available and responsive to the people. That is to say the officer has to be available for serving the maximum number of public clients that he can effectively deal with. It has to be realized right away, that only a just and efficient government under a strong political leadership and non-partisan administrative machinery can deliver the fruits of socio-economic development to the people in the new century. The solution is in the hands of vigilant leadership in the executive and legislative branches, and solution is essential if our society has to attain the status of the 'good society' as defined by that eminent intellectual, late John Kenneth Galbraith .

The writer is former Civil Servant and Senior Journalist.