Editorial
Public servants as sinecure?
Stop wasting money, experience and skill
There is perhaps no other country in the world that pays some of its civil servant for doing precisely nothing. From a report that appeared in a leading daily Bangla daily recently, as of now nearly four hundred public servants are officers on special duty (OSD).
Whereas, the OSD provision allows the administration to address special situation where an officer's posting is pending or the person is on course abroad or there is a pending departmental procedures against him or her, this, unfortunately, is being used as a political tool to keep 'unwanted' public servants at arms length. Or it is applied as a means of 'punishing' someone not in the good books of the government of the day, being not of the same ilk, since no other means is available to proceed legally against the person.
This dismal picture has gone on for much too long to the detriment of public and state interest, it being a practice that has been followed by all governments in the past. A look at relevant statistics will suggest how awe inspiring the matter is. The number of OSD in 1996 when the BNP government relinquished power stood at 355; it came down to 174 when the AL handed over the reins in July 2001, which once again went up to 758 at the end of the BNP-led alliance tenure in October 2005. The caretaker government managed to bring it down to 58.
Such large number of officers kept without anything to do is a shameful commentary on the state of poor governance and malfeasance of the powers that be, apart from the fact that it exposes the abject politicisation of the administration.
We had been urging the government off and on to stop using an administrative provision for political purpose, overt or covert. This wasteful practice must stop once for all. Can the state brook such a situation, particularly one like ours with severe resource crunch, and where there are many departments of the government that are running short of officers? Apart from the wastage of trained manpower and the opportunity cost it incurs it has a debilitating effect on the morale that affect the performance of public servants in the long run.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments