WHILE the scope for merits in public service remains limited due to imposition of 56 percent quota, the recent comment of Prime Minister’s adviser HT Imam that the government would help the leaders and activists of Chhatra League in the viva voce of public service recruitment if they could pass the written exams stuns the conscientious ones. Politicization of administration has caused immense sufferings to the country since the independence. If the scope for the meritorious ones is put aside while recruiting party men in the bureaucracy, it is sure that the country will have to bear the burden of an inefficient merit-less bureaucracy in the coming days. The policy idea has come from a former bureaucrat turned political guide and it should be clear to all except the power hungry ones that he is there not for looking after the greater interest of the country. He is there to destroy the merit based government. As a former bureaucrat, he knows equal opportunity for all means nothing. The said advisor to the Prime Minister during a discussion at Dhaka University claims that his leader [the PM] had told them to ‘arrange jobs for BCL men by any means.’ We have to wait and see who is saying on whose behalf. But trained HT Imam should know how to be obedient. In the absence of political leadership and when the plan is to remain in power denying the people of their voting rights, anything HT Imam says has a political implication. The government needs obedient public servants loyal to party politics. To be more clear, the public servants will cease to be public servant working for the people. The public servants will be just party servants.What is becoming clearer as the real intention comes out that the government itself will be not for the people and of the people but of the party men and for the party men. But what is forgotten is that our people have not achieved independence at a heavy price for the benefit of any party. It is not safe to think that the people are helpless and will remain helpless. Whether elected or not a government needs competent people to run a government.
