THE Cabinet committee on economic affairs on Thursday approved a proposal for purchasing 50 jeeps at a cost of Tk 47 crore without any tender in the name of direct purchase for saving times. The jeeps will be Pajero Sport QX, and the price of each jeep is Tk 94,00,000. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said that the jeeps would be given to Upazila Nirbahi Officers known as UNOs. He said that the jeeps would be supplied by the state-owned car-body assembler Pragati Industries Limited. However, we’ve no objection if the UNOs get costly luxury jeeps and if the government could afford the expenses. All the Ministers, State Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Cabinet Secretaries, senior secretaries, secretaries, acting secretaries and even senior assistant secretaries avail expensive cars and jeeps. So why will not the UNOs!
But what’s the reason for being so hurry? Anything purchased by the government bypassing the tender committee could encourage corruption. Another thing which surprised us is that – how the junior-level government officials are being introduced with lavishness and richly life style. The UNOs usually work in the grassroots level administration where a large number of people are from limited-earning group. Earlier, we saw senior-level bureaucrats were made happy by offering them expensive cars, lavish houses, unnecessary foreign trips, latest model iPhones, and so on. The phone and internet bills of them are borne by their respective Ministries. Apart from enhancing the salaries of government officials for two times, post of senior secretary was introduced in the civil service for rewarding the loyal bureaucrats.
Trying to keep happy the bureaucrats may be the policy of the government to stay in power undisturbed. But surely, in the long-run, it will be of no help. It may be considered as another bright example of misusing public money.
But what’s the reason for being so hurry? Anything purchased by the government bypassing the tender committee could encourage corruption. Another thing which surprised us is that – how the junior-level government officials are being introduced with lavishness and richly life style. The UNOs usually work in the grassroots level administration where a large number of people are from limited-earning group. Earlier, we saw senior-level bureaucrats were made happy by offering them expensive cars, lavish houses, unnecessary foreign trips, latest model iPhones, and so on. The phone and internet bills of them are borne by their respective Ministries. Apart from enhancing the salaries of government officials for two times, post of senior secretary was introduced in the civil service for rewarding the loyal bureaucrats.
Trying to keep happy the bureaucrats may be the policy of the government to stay in power undisturbed. But surely, in the long-run, it will be of no help. It may be considered as another bright example of misusing public money.
