There’s unrest visible in the administration as the tension arisen among the officers of all phases of the administration over the proposal of the Public Administration Reform Commission. The officers and employees already began to show their discontent and initiate protest.
Bangladesh Administrative Service association (BASA), the organization of admin caders of Bangladesh, and all the deputy commissioners (DC) in the country protested over it. In addition, the protest is also visible from employees of various batches. According to the experts and former officers, if the instability is going on and isn’t pacified, everything related to the government will be under threat.
The Public Administration Reform Commission was formed to give constructive proposals to revamp the current public administration. However, this commission has created controversy and anger. The commission is going to propose a 50:50 ratios for administration and other cadre officials for promoting to the post of deputy secretary in the government, in addition to conduct an examination to become deputy secretaries and joint secretaries. In addition, the administration and education and health cadre officials are also very discontent with the news that they are taking steps to propose the formation of separate organizations for the education and health cadres. They have called on the commission to withdraw from the draft proposal.
After Abdul Mueed Chowdhury, the head of the Public Administration Reform Commission, presented the draft proposal at a meeting with journalists at the Secretariat, BIT on December 17, various criticisms started. A storm of criticism arose in social media groups of different batches. The BASA protested by holding an emergency meeting. Education and health cadre officials also rejected the draft recommendation. In this regard, public administration expert and former secretary AKM Abdul Awal Majumder told The Bangladesh Pratidin, "Unrest in the administration due to these activities or excessive talks will also be causes of damage to the government. It has already fallen into a risk as everyone is protesting. Excessive talk is increasing unrest among the officials. This is also making the officials lose focus on their work. These need to be resolved quickly. This cadre sharing does not exist anywhere else in the world. Since the quota has been removed, the previous sharing also needs to be removed."
He said that in Singapore, the foreign secretaries are appointed from the admin cadre.
Criticizing the draft proposal, an official of the 28th batch told Bangladesh Pratidin, "Then everyone should be allowed to join all cadres. We will also go to the foreign or tax cadre. Tax cadre officials collect revenue, so they get incentives of several lakhs a year. Don't our AC lands collect revenue? They don't even have incentives.”
Former Secretary Abu Alam Shahid Khan said, “There is no such thing as cadre sharing anywhere in the world. Someone joined another cadre who were below them in the serial without doing well in the exam. According to the tradition, he changes cadre after a few years and tries to get into the first-line cadre. This is discrimination. The President's quota has also been used politically and there is no need to retain it. Whoever gets the cadre positions at the time of recruitment will later get promotion according to the position he holds in that cadre.”
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
