Assignment on

Challenges of Public Administration in Bangladesh

Submitted to◌ঃ-

Mohammed Jahirul Hoque

Assistant Professor
Dept. of political Studies
Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Sylhet

Submitted By◌ঃ-
Md Fahim Ahmed
Regi No.- 2019235086
Dept Of. Political Studies
Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Sylhet.

Introduction◌ঃ-

Bureaucracy is essentially a basic part of the government regardless which type of

government is adopted in any country. be it of the dictatorship, democratic, presidential etc,
it must have an administration in order that the rules and policies passed on top of the
government are turned into reality in the root zones by the government agencies deployed
there. the agencies implementing the will of the sovereignty works as a bridge between the
ordinary people and the executive officials of the state. Therefore in most of the developing
countries of the world the public administration has been given much importance as well as
the people working as the administrators in the agencies pertaining to the upper floors with
many opportunities, all these led the administrators to boast in their status, creating a big
gap between themselves and the general public. In the following papers we will know the
problems existing in the Public Administration of Bangladesh and the ways to get rid of them.
Before we go deep in the discussion regarding the aforementioned issues, we need to have
a little look at the brief history leading the current bureaucratic system thus far.

A brief history of Bangladesh's Public Adminiatration◌ঃ-

​Bangladesh's administrative structure is almost a carbon-copy of the one the British ruled
over the indian sub-continent with. Including the modern-day pakistan and Bangladesh the
entire region was reigned by the British for close to two centuries on the same trot. In 1947,
on the basis of just the identicality of religious values the east Bangla what would be an
independent nation with the tag of Bangladesh became a province of Pakistan. The rulers of
Pakistan. Finally in 1971 a nine-month long war gave rise to a sovereign. In all of its
administrative sectors the inherited colonial values prevail on a regular basis, its generally in
the fields of political and administrative activities. The use of it by the British made it a
necessary tool for governance. At the same time, it is charged with the objection of
practicing 'power politics' which was an open secret during the Pakistani rule. The
contemporary bureaucratic system in Bangladesh originates from the British in the real
sense, it had to undergo a number of modifications starting from the British period, to that of
Pakistan and finally to the one of Bangladesh.

Lack of Accountability◌ঃ

​Liability is one of the significant necessities to ensure in public administration. Using

this 'accountability' the functions of public administrative organisations can be evaluated
well. Each of the administrative soloist has handful of goals to fall in with. To affirm
administrative accountability steps can be taken to have an estimation of the way the
organisations that are performing the assigned duties and responsibilities. Administrative
liability is achievement oriented, it attempts to make the necessary resources available to the
administrators or officials to make sure they do not face any complexity in bringing the
resources together for better service given that the more resources are available to the
concerned people of the administration, the sooner the accountability in the same can be
taken into account. Accountability is also an effective measure against corruption in Public
offices(​Muhit, 1999)

Although in theory it is stated that public bureaucracy must be compelled to remain

responsive to the public hearings with respect to their designed or implemented functions in
addition to the financial probity. Because of the issues following below the Bangladeshi
administrative system can not make sure that accountability is always on the track to have
views of.

Impaired institutional means◌ঃ

Despite having a number of institutions capable of ensuring accountability in the

bureaucratic system such as hierarchy, span of control, supervision and unity of command
etc, these instruments are yet to take bold moves to make sure that accountability is in
existence and the administrative agencies are in well control due to the instruments'
systematic weakness, resultantly creating hindances in the ways of the performance of civil
service. Parliament, parliamentary committees etc are not as much effective as they should
be against the ill-practices redacted in public administration and corruption.

Weak audit and accounts system◌ঃ

 Before beginning to talk about the inactivity of this system, we can cite a proverb
here largely known to almost everyone of our country,"​govt given things, infuse
them into seas"​ this sentence alone can impart us a better concept regarding the
uses of the resources provided by the government. Whatever given by the
government, a little of it reaches the actualRecipient and almost the entire service in
some way or other is taken in by the people working in an administration of a
particular field.

Liability in the administrative system◌ঃ-

It is one of the significant necessities to ensure "accountability" using this. The

functions of the administrative organisations can be evaluated well, each of the
administrative soloist has a handful of goals to be fell in with. To affirm administrative
accountability steps can be undertaken to have an estimation of the way the
organisation assigned with a wide range of day-to-day duties and responsibilities.
Administrative liability is achievement oriented. it attempts to make necessary
resources available for the attainment of the organisational objectives. Accountability
is also an effective measure against corruption

Absence of participatory management◌ঃ-

A management is open to the recommended persons to take part in the decision

making process, but because of some undemocratic-minded officieries do not
arouse the participatory management style, this provides the officials holding this
sort of attitude a space for misusing public resources.

Absence of stable of strong and stable political institutions◌ঃ-

Globally civil service worrks under the purview and framework provided by the
political institutions, here owing to the unstable political institutions qualitative control
is not in appearance, that is why bureaucracy has turned out to be a self-governing
system and it's freely acting sometimes goes beyond the jurisdiction it should work in
accordance with. In Bangladesh the civil service system in some way is an
over-grown system superceding the existing political system. which is not acceptable
in the democratic governmental principles.

Weak system for punishment and inspection◌ঃ-

If any civil service officer is found availed with immoral undertakings, the
authorities can go for action in order to sorting out the problem surrounding the
convict, nevertheless the civil service structure that generally monitors the activities
of the civil servants and officials is rather inactive for multiple purposes.
Fragile administrative tribunal◌ঃ-

Administrative tribunals are established with a view to dispensing justice to civil

service officers, yet on account of the unco-ordinated course of action, no one
ventures to approach to it due to the fear of getting ensnared amid the complexities
of the system, and they rather tolerate the malpractice of the corrupted officials.

Poor implementation of the departmental action◌ঃ-

There is a system of departmental measures against the ones abrogating the

regulations and is charged with maltreatment or the embezzlement of public fund.
And hardly a strict action is taken against a civil servent, keeping the on-going
situation of the of the administrative situation in mind, a civil servent engaged in any
act that goes against the administrative standards is at most fined some money or
transferred to other offices, thats all.

Lack of transparency◌ঃ-

To tide over the obstacles of public administrative and uplift the performance of
civil service it is very necessary to make sure there is good enough transparency in
the day-to-day activities. As their salaries mostly originate from the money comes to
revenue-related institution in the form of tax, so it is just irrational in the case of the
particular civil servents trying to keep the everyday's affairs of their administration
undercovered shunting the queries of the rank and file with regard to their activities.

There are several acts of 1923 and the government servant conduct rules (GNCR)
coming into force as a law in (1979) that basically have the civil servants sworn in on
the commitment that they will maintain utmost secrecy in their day-to-day affairs.
the article-19 GSCR for example, recommends the civil servants that they stay
abstain from disclosing any sensitive information without having taken government
permission previously to those officials of the sister organizations, non official
persons or press.

"The contents of any official documents or communicate any information

which has come into his possession in the course of his official duties
whether from official resources or otherwise," (​World Bank, 1996)

Sadly in Bangladesh a good number of government undertakings and schemes

are put in secret away from the public eye-sight. It is something has been a norm in
the Public Administration of this country which inherited this sort of secrecy from the
colonial time, when the desires of the public administration were different from that
of the governed people (World Bank, 1996)
Lots of countries now back the concept that concealment diminishes proficiency and
productivity in decision making, nevertheless it overlooks the basic principles of
democracy, taking decisions in presence of public seems to be economically logical.

Failure of the reform attempt◌ঃ-

. Bangladesh still operates the whole administrative built by the British during the
colonial era which has proved ineffective in handling the issues arising in the
semi-modern Bangladeshi society with it's age-old administrative structure and
principles, ​"The following regimes made efforts to bring about some reforms in
the secretarial scheme taking up office reform expenses and getting relevant
committees to force for modifying civilisation(Jahan and Shahan
2009:70)​Bangladesh for a point of time focused on administrative reform and took
some notable steps after the liberation war in 1971, but to no use. But the reform
efforts undertaken are only confined to a string of proposals and studies.

Cometic change◌ঃ-

The Bangladeshi administrative system is known as a crowded system that

unfavours change of any form. In order to usher substantiative improvements
optional modernism each administrative reform committee has attempted in
accordance with its capacity it holds itself. renaming a new name to the committee
supposed to bring about changes to public administration reform committee(PARC)
that projected the provision and performance criteria and cited about the citizen’s
charter for five vital organizations and three ministries; the constitution of three
clusters of closely related ministries—economic, socio-political and general
infrastructure; and three public service commission’s formation—general, technical
and educational services. It is necessary to focus that any of these
recommendations have been executed

Problems of recruitment◌ঃ-

The bureaucracy was naturally an instrument of the colonial rulers throughout the
period, it was founded aiming to create a spontaneous chain of command consisting
of the recruited and recommended officials who could serve the purposes of the
imperialistic British rulers, isolating themselves from the ordinary people (Alavi,1972:
59-62).

The matter of direct recruitment, with more clarification the writings indicate the
exam method, even the rectified one, is abound to recruit skilled employees into the
public service. It does not muse on bringing on innovative ideas regarding the
procedures of the exam. The syllabus that is followed for the civil service exam
suggests that the civil service exam's question pattern is not as much dour as it was
in the British and Pakiatan era. The BCS examination has converted into a facile one
unlike the succeeding eras, as the all the applicants have to do is to get the
suggested lessons by heart and put that in the scripts with the pen. The the question
pattern selected for the BCS exam does not bestow the effective method of having
qualified people for appointment. Besides time and again, most of the time the
compliants of favouring a group of people for showing the question in advance is
labelled against the authority.

The Public Service commission (PSC) is yet to take steps to resolute this difficulty,
with the hue and cry with regard to the question-divulging continuing to get bigger at
the time of preliminary and written examination. The continuous fear about the
transpiration of the question pattern along side politicization are dwarfing the faith the
country's people have in the PSC.

Gap between the bureaucrats and citizens◌ঃ--

A huge distance is found created between the general citizens and the bureaucrats,
to be honest, this king of distance results from the authoritarianism, unwavering
reverence towards rules, instructions and principles of the administration. The facets
mentioned above demand that the bureaucrats be authoratarian. Their adjustment to
the regulations and ultimate repugnance to abide by that pushes the common people
in troublesome situations, This underlines the bureaucrats are more inclined to
maintaining their status quo rather than turning the bureaucratic structure to the
welfare of the common people

Recommendations◌ঃ-

● Elimination of corruption ought to be the number one necessary initiative to

be taken into account on the face of the threatening rise of political and
administrative corruption and its various affects on society on the whole,
everyone should infer that extinction of corruption is simply apprehensible if
progressive political devotion is present there. Due to the lack of political
commitment, accreditation of bureaucracy and a diligent civil society for
beholding corruption could be a very tough and next to impossible task.
Simply abrupt and necessary policy-measures brought into light and backed
by a well-committed political leadership and performed by an ingenious
bureaucracy overseen by a well-united civil society can control corruption
on issue keeping the perspective of Bangladesh in mind.

● Administrative reforms are essential to be addressed by the government

assuming the supreme power of the state. It is now a huge factor for those
subsequent governments who disappointingly proved futile in handling this
 one, A number of factors can be found out which have choked the ability of
the governments went in power in turn pushed along the reform attempts. The
rule of law is in the driving seat cutting things into parts that have a huge
impact on public lives from a wide range of scope. So the capability of the
government should be enhanced so it becomes successful in bringing
success in the administrative reform acts.

● Making administration get politicized is now an pen secret in almost all the
countries of world. in the case of Bangladesh it has been horribly politicized
which has profusely damaging influence on the fundamentals of the public
organisation. This huge impact of politicization has to be minimised and to
bring the administration under the model of NPM.

● In its position of redacting the spacious-based reform schedules, the

governments coming power by turn have to find immense interest in little
targets despite their unwillingness to do so which can be materialized with
little labour and thus they can remain concentrated

● The reassurance of the political leadership can act as a powerful force after
the execution of the reform initiatives, political leadership can be held
accountable in this regard for diverting the attention of the officials engaged in
the reform activities from the reform agendas

● Flourishing and holding up gender equality is the topmost agenda to be

addressed in a developing country like Bangladesh, where the importance of
gender equality is increasing day by day. Policies should be introduced in the
civil service arena with a view to bringing a fair equity between the female and
the male civil servants and a lucid alike facility procedures akin to the act of
programme for favourable act in the fields of staffing, appointment, training
and sexual harassment and bringng about specific purposes of equal
standards at various levels have been attained over a certain period of time.

● Well co-ordinated and proficient functioning of the civil service desiderates the
efficient use of IT technology, the enduing improvements are intimately
associated with it, therefore it is essential to uphold the practical use of IT
technology putting good enough importance on mote development affected
the time management, client satisfaction positively.

● It is ver necessary fot the time being and will continue to remain the same in
any reform agenda to come in the near future. A good number of reform
ingeniousness have been put into practice in Bangladesh to develop the way
of providing services
Conclusion◌ঃ-

Modern statea are regarded as welfare, with more clearance, an administrative and
development-oriented state, So bureaucracy is an indispensable organisation for the
socio-economic development of the Bangladesh society. To ensure good
governance in the administration and have an expert administrative body, liable and
transparent, qualitative political interposition is the need of time.
After the independence of Bangladesh in1971, Bureaucrats are playing the role of a
vibrant protagonist for the progress of the country. The productivity, efficiency and
responsibility of the executive also rose to the range of time. But the situation is not
sufficient to attain the objective. The political government must promise itself to
reform packages, as per they are assured to yield both high political and economic
settlements to the regime itself. The regime must act promptly to reestablish
discipline in the governing arrangement through positive tools of direction, defense,
delivery and regulation.

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