Bureaucrats need to be spared of partisan ping pong

THE recent spate of transfers and postings in the civil bureaucracy is causing anxiety among many officials, according to a report published in New Age on Sunday. Civil bureaucrats at all levels are reportedly fearful of being sidelined as officers on special duty at the establishment ministry or of being given undesired postings by the new government. The reason for this anxiety stems from the apparent replaying of an old and all-too-familiar tale with regard to promotions and transfers of civil service officers — every time a new government comes to power in our country, it sidelines, sometimes for its entire term, officers who it considers to be supporters of the opposition parties and favours officers who it considers loyal to it. Hence, officers who were favoured during the rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government will now presumably to be sidelined, while those who were sidelined during that period by that government will presumably be given priority over the next five years in promotions and desirable postings. Hence, it is only natural that a section of civil servants are now feeling anxious about their professional fate.
Discussions about which party or government started the blatant politicisation of the civil bureaucracy are no longer relevant. The more poignant truth is that successive governments have partaken in this for decades, with each new government only bettering its predecessors in politicising the civil service. For many years now, the merit of officers has hardly been a factor at all in their promotions and postings; rather, officers have been rewarded for their loyalty to the political party in power and punished for the slightest suspicion of their support for opposition political parties. Whereas the allegiance of civil servants is meant to be to the republic, the systematic politicisation of the bureaucracy by successive governments has resulted in civil servants shifting their allegiance to one party or the other, thereby virtually destroying the neutrality, integrity and effectiveness of the civil service. It is very unfortunate, in our view, that this same tradition looks likely to continue under the current Awami League-led alliance government. It is particularly disheartening because this government came to power on the back of its promise to bring qualitative change to politics and governance in our country. This tradition of politicising the bureaucracy, if it continues, will be entirely contrary to that promise.
Given that the past government had sidelined many officers who were worthy of promotions and better postings because of their apparent political leanings, it is not objectionable that the new government might rehabilitate many of those officers. However, all promotions and postings ought to be done on the basis of the merit, competence and integrity of the officers in question rather than on the basis of their party loyalty. Hence, officers should be promoted if they merit promotion, not simply because they were persecuted by the last government. At the same time, competent and honest officers who may have been favoured by the last government because of their perceived loyalty should not be sidelined by the present government for that same reason. In short, the best officers at every level should be given the most critical positions and all promotions should be based on merit in order for the civil service to be optimally effective. If the AL-led alliance government actually means what it has said about bringing change to politics, it should break with tradition and make the civil bureaucracy a true meritocracy, not a party political institution.