Making sure that the changes are stable - ACC can help CTG with the dillema
The current interim government is implementing a lot of reforms, taking many decisions that was unimaginable for a long time and we are hoping these changes will pay divident for the nation in coming days. But there is a IF. Government is also aware of the IF. The IF concerns the stability of the system in the new state. Any social or political changes needs time to make the adjustment for a changed policy. However, the changes that are being implemented in the last two years, these are proving too much for our politicians and traditional elites of the society. So the concern of IF points to the concern that weather it will reverse.
Off course, if things reverses, it will have a degenerative effect on the social progress - as opposed to the regenerative effect that many of us are expecting. The concern becomes more serious when one thinks of the implication of that effect on our lives of corrupt politicians. Certainly, that would pave the way for many of jailed or absconding politicians a promise of good old days which is dangerous for the society. Before going into the detail of our topic today, lets take a look at the scorecard of current government.
Someone in another forum listed the scorecard of this government as follows:
Some of their successes:
#1. National ID
#2. Voter List
#3. Chittagong Port
#4. Separation of Judiciary
#5. Development of Dudok, EC, PSC
#6. Arresting Godfather & Godmothers
Some of their failures:
#1. Failure to control commodity price
#2. Failure to clean corruption from own organs like police
#3. Failure to give comfort to the honest businessman
#4. Failure to estabilish strong allegation against the Godfather and Godmother held behind the bar.
#5. No control over power sector and trasnport sector
#6. Failure to focus on reduce the widespread "vejal" in consumers goods (we add this)
#7. Failure to making the mess in private universities at a manageable level (we add this)
#8. Failure to introduce a merit and performance based promotion criteria in public service including the co-opting senior buerucrats from the private, semi-government sectors by introducing a separate selection body for policy making level (we add this)
#9. Failure to declare the elected posts competitive with other jobs with similar stress by declaring them as professional posts (we add this)
#10. Failure to act decisively to capture and punish the alleged war criminals by holding tribunals (we add this)
The #1 and #10 failure are a result of many factors including deficiencies in timely actions of the government and its perceived risk-averse nature, inexperience and lack of understanding of politics, among many others. However, all other failures can be traced to or generalised as one single failure. That is the government's explicit or implicit decision to leave the major part of the buerucracy out of scope. In other words, the top bosses at the secrertiats are holding on those reform proposal by using a number of tactics. Any lay person can imagine that the favourite tactic of these culprits will be delay things as long as possible - long enough to expire the tenure of the government. And their counterparts in the political parties are making sure that govermnet has a solid expiry date and they have done it very well from the very beginning. Why? A number of factors have led to this situation. The government of Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed is also aware of this. But what they are doing about it? Or are they doing anything?
To our judgmement, this is one of most important policy decision that this government is facing. How to balance the need of doing enough vs. doing too much?
So far, it seems the government has made a policy decision about not touching the buerucracy (or touch minimally). They are hoping that this policy would help the system to maintain stability over the near term. 50 ministers needs 50 secretaries - isn't it? They are ready to catch all the 50 ministers, but not all the 50 secretaries. Why? Also, since they do not want to touch the 50 secretaries, they will not be able to convincingly prove any of the cases against the ministers. And that is the real problem as far as long term stability is concerned. CTG is actually hurting the stability - if they decided not to touch bureacracy for the sake of stability! A dillema - isn't it?
This policy - if it were taken conciously - has also weakened the overall stability. How - would you ask? Let us clarify.
The degeneration - if that happens - would start with the relatively weak cases being pursued against the political leaders. Some of these cases are so weak that it might give a perception that the cases are politically motivated - as opposed to the criminal cases as they are being projected now.
How did that happen?
Since government did not engage the corrupt members of the buerucracy to the full extant, there was not much option but file weak cases. A minister does a corruption with the help of a secretary OR the prime minister did a corruption with the help of a cabinet secretary. Now if those secretaries are still part of the government, how could a strong case be made against the politicians.
We are not sure the merit of this compromise in the context of national interest. Its true the burecracy is important for continuity of the policy changes, but that should not come at the cost of 'wrong perception' of politically motivated cases. If you give 13 years to a minister for corruption in a certain ministry, that should implicate the secretary of the same ministry for at least 7 years - general people would expect that.
This is a balancing act that government has to re-assess again. No policy decision should be static - all should be addressed dynamically. The only thing that should stay as static is the long term good governance of the country, national interest and goodwill of the general people of Bangladesh. Anything - that increases the possibility of long term good governance of the country, it should not left un-addressed.
So, is there anything specific that we are proposing for the government to do, as we usually do in our articles? Yes, we want to propose something. But unlike many of the articles, this particular proposal isn't for the government, per se. It is for the ACC. We hope when the ACC government returns from the much needed personal time-off for him, he would focus on to do some stretching - show some teeth. ACC should unearth some new cases or evidences that creates chasm for the government. Embarrass the government - lets see how it deals with that. We hope Mr. Chairman will do justice to his reputation. We all have two opposing side in our character. In this context, it can be safely said that Mr. Chairman wasn't selected to the Army Chief position during his service to the nation for the reputation of being straight-forward, to the point and honest. To the political government, it was his natural tendency to oblige seniors to the fullest extant which made you an attractive choice. Now is the time to prove this perception wrong. Show some evidence of your reputation that exists among general people and general soldiers. The position that you accepted as ACC chairman does not have any use of your qualities of following order. This position needs your other qualities which is being straight forward, being to the point and being honest. Now is the time - the nation will be watching!
If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the columinsts in regular traditional media, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article as Creative Commons contents.
Dear readers, also, if you thought the article was important enough so it should come under attention of the head of the government please forward the message to them. Email address for the Chief Advisor: feeedback@pmo.gov.bd_ or at http://www.cao.gov.bd/feedback/comments.php . The more of you forward it to them, the less will be the need to go back to street agitation. Use ICT to practice democracy. It is already proven that this government responds to the feedback.
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