The Prime Minister at the meeting issued a 17-point directive asking them to take effective steps at the field level to contain militancy and drug peddling, removing inter-cadre disparities and strengthening efforts to establish good governance. She told the secretaries that salaries and allowances of public servants have been raised during her tenure so they must work devotedly and corruption in government offices must stop. In our view secretaries may have raised their demands when the Prime Minister has asked them to fulfill her demands.
Top bureaucrats already make more money as the most privileged people. The government budget is already seriously constrained by hefty salary and allowances to public servants, which take most of the revenue budget. The government has made additional allocation for public administration by over 48 percent or Tk 64,585 crore alone in this year’s budget and most of it will go to the public servants as salary and allowances. We don’t know what services they render to the public to claim open end benefit unto death.
The problem that the government is facing is nothing unusual when the government does not believe in free and fair election but on the support of bureaucracy.
