THE day before yesterday, the Cabinet approved a draft of the Government Telephone, Cellular and Internet Policy-2018 raising the mobile phone allowance for ministers and secretaries to Tk 75,000 from Tk 15,000. The draft also introduced a number of changes to the existing policy framed in 2004.
After a certain period of time, a raise or increase for bills or allowances can surely become necessary for anyone – not only for secretaries or ministers. The question, however, why as much as by five times?
For instance, according to the draft policy, those who are entitled to get mobile phones, including Ministers, State Ministers, Deputy ministers, all secretaries and acting secretaries will get Tk 75,000 instead of Tk 15,000 to buy a mobile phone set for professional purposes – whereas one can easily procure an international quality handset for less than Tk 25,000.
We don’t find it relevant to equip our bureaucrats’ with the state-of-the-art gadgetry since it will do little to upgrade their performance. The raise should have been doubled and even made three times but we find no valid reason for raising the allowance by as much as five times under any circumstances. Our bureaucrats’ serving the Cabinet must re-think the decision, the money that they decide to raise is public money collected through revenue.
What’s also baffling is that according to the existing policy, there is no ceiling for mobile phone expenditures by Ministers, State Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Secretaries. Joint Secretaries reportedly would get Tk 1,500 a month as mobile phone expenses instead of the current Tk 600. But they would not get any allocation for purchasing mobile phone sets. The reason, however, was not explained.
To cut a long story short, such government policies are ambiguous, incomplete and also inconsiderate. Especially the increase has been made just a few months before the 11th Parliamentary Election, which could be considered as a backhander to the country’s top bureaucrats. In other sense, it is nothing but a desperate effort to establish ruling party’s full control on the bureaucracy.
The government ministers and government servants are very lucky that they hope to get all the benefits conceivable with public money.
