POLITICAL interference by anti-people technocrats is one of the major reasons for which the administration cannot function in keeping with the law. Another important reason is inefficiency, which is also the consequence of the politicisation of bureaucracy,’ retired bureaucrat Mizanur Rahman Shelley said. The officials, who got postings on political considerations, remained subservient to their political masters and the administration could not function properly, as was mentioned in the report of an English daily.
The Shipping Minister, Shahjahan Khan, reportedly told the cabinet meeting on Monday that authorities had failed to take action against land grabbers, many of them being ruling party’s lawmakers, in rivers around the Dhaka city despite efforts. He told the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who was presiding over the meeting, that the rivers could not be reclaimed fully because of the involvement of some ruling party men and lawmakers in the encroachment on several stretches of the rivers in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Comilla, as mentioned in the report.
It has been known for sometime that the administration has become increasingly business affair of Awami League’s powerful ones and thus the government become a dysfunctional heaven for corrupt and criminals. The reasons for this are also well known—parties in power only want people who are moneyed and violent persons to save them against the people.
Unfortunately this system of governance has some drawbacks – people who are blindly subservient and live only to obey are not the best or brightest of their lot. Thus they are unlikely to be efficient and serve the nation and its citizens – from whose taxes they are incidentally paid. They are also more likely to be more corrupt and inclined to Machiavellian strategies instead of doing what they are in fact, paid to do — serve the people of this country. Thus instead of increasing the overall welfare of the citizens they are more inclined to serve the criminals – as was the case in the recent murders in Narayangonj where the main accused was given seven arms licenses by the district administration – it was only recently cancelled after a public outcry.
The highly ambitious out of job technocrats have new jobs of doing politics to destroy political successive governments. That is why Begum Khaleda Zia is no option, she being equally dependent on anti-democracy technocrats. They must not go unpunished.
