How discrimination in the civil service leads to inequality and inefficiency

The future of a country depends on its existing policies. Advanced policies are the key to a trailblazing future. However, policies become farcical if there is a lack of bona fide implementation and execution.  

Whilst lawmakers are responsible mostly for policy making, executions are mostly done by civil servants, more commonly known as bureaucrats. 

If the state is considered as a human body, the public servants are at the heart of it. And if the state is a machine, then public servants are the engine of it. However, defects in the heart and the engine will lead to an absolute collapse of both the body and the machine. Similarly, a muddled execution body will guide the state towards nothing but an unalterable catastrophe. 

Discrimination works as an accelerator for dismantling the smooth operation of a system. Currently, in the civil service of Bangladesh, there are 27 cadres. Despite having an adequate amount of skilled personnel in all the sectors, the admin cadre is the only sector that remains at the peak of all the priorities and facilities. 

There are 11 senior secretaries of which 11 of them have been promoted from the admin cadre. There are 61 secretaries of which 59 of them have been promoted from the admin cadre. 

Promotion in professional life expeditiously plays a great role in the quality development of the employees of all levels. Starting from deputy secretary to cabinet and principal secretary, 3,143 workers are currently appointed in different public sectors. 

Both the cabinet secretary and the principal secretary have been promoted from the admin cadre. There are 11 senior secretaries of which 11 of them have been promoted from the admin cadre. There are 61 secretaries of which 59 of them have been promoted from the admin cadre. 

Out of 16, all the 16 grade-1 employees have been promoted from admin cadre. Out of 501 additional secretaries, 446 are from the admin cadre. Out of 595 joint secretaries, 495 of them are from the admin cadre. Out of 1,957 deputy secretaries, 1,542 are from the admin cadre. 

Overall, out of 3,143 employees, 2,571 belong to the admin cadre. Considering the statistics, anyone might think that the promotion is highly dispensed for the employees of the admin cadre, but article 19(1) of the constitution states that "The State shall endeavour to ensure equality of opportunity to all citizens." 

Article 20(1) states that "Work is a right, a duty and a matter of honour for every citizen who is capable of working, and everyone shall be paid for his work based on the principle "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work" and article 29(1) states that "There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in respect of employment or office in the service of the Republic". 

Again, the S.8 of Public Service Act 2018 states that "Appointments to and from within the public service must be based on the principle of merit and be the result of a process designed to appraise the knowledge, skills and abilities of eligible applicants. Again, the matters to be considered in determining merit must, having regard to the nature of the duties to be performed, include the applicant's education, skills, knowledge, experience, past work performance and years of continuous service in the public service. 

Questioning the competency is indeed extremely illogical and nothing but just an excuse. Competency comes with skills and experience. For example, the one working in the education cadre since the beginning must be appointed as the secretary of the Education Ministry because no other employees from other sectors will know this department more than him. A similar method should be followed for the other existing cadres for maintaining checks and balances between inter-governmental organisations, which will ensure proper accountability significantly. 

The aforementioned situation is affecting public life in a great manner. A survey states that 93% of the journalists believe that bureaucrats have turned reckless.  

Again, the provided facilities for these public offices have been criticised heavily which begs numerous questions regarding their performance, quality and effectiveness. Tk71,350 crore has been allocated in the bureaucrats' payroll in fiscal 2021-2022, which is 11.8% of the proposed budget. 

With a better payroll and facilities, it's obvious to expect better services. Again, the pandemic saved Tk2,500 crore, which was the cost of foreign tours of government officials, which raises the expectation of the taxpayers that the foreign training will help the officials to implement and execute in a better manner.  

There might be a change in the lifestyle of the public servants with the increased payroll, but the corruption and inefficient service in the public sector have hardly changed. Bangladesh is better than only Afghanistan in South Asia on Transparency International's Corruption Index 2020. The Bangladeshi passport has been ranked the ninth weakest in the world. 

Similar situations like these highly denote the deteriorating service from these public offices which is gravely opposite towards the expectation. The taxpayer's expectation will be highly satisfied when the authority tends to serve instead of getting served. 

Bangladesh would have gone so far in the eyes of actual development if the research field were equally prioritised.

The author is a first-year L.L.B. student at the London College of Legal Studies.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.