The need for specialised cadres

The service reorganisation and conditions Act 1975, formulated in July 1975, was the first step in designing Bangladesh’s public and allied activities. Subsequently, a few cadres were merged with the administration cadre during different administrative and political regimes, such as the secretariat cadre. The economic cadre was merged with the administration cadre in 2018. Now a committee is working on merging the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) trade cadre with the administration cadre.

Members of the information, cooperative and statistics cadres have separate agendas of mergers with the administration cadre. The preference for the administration cadre is based on certain privileges that the members enjoy over other cadres. The promotion prospect and other perks, such as appointment as the chief executive in parastatal and autonomous government units, foreign assignments in the diplomatic mission, and multilateral development agencies, are from the members of the administration cadre. Interest-free car loan and car maintenance allowance is other brawl in the spectrum.

It is acceptable that a member of a designated cadre is absorbed into another cadre in his service length, given the appropriate academic background, training, and aptitude for work. However, the wholesale merger into a general structure and elimination of cadres that requires special professional skills and talents may be a poor policy for efficiency and productivity. It is not a fair idea to lead the mass-scale merger of any technical cadre with a general cadre. The members of the technical cadre are endowed with subject-specific knowledge, work experience in an area that the incumbent learned through a trial and error process, and exposure to a learning environment guided by professionals. Candidates can choose a specific cadre; an engineering or medical graduate may have the aptitude to work in administration, and the viva voce board may critically consider the placement. On the contrary, the wholesale merger of the public works department or statistics cader into the administration cadre would only create a void in the public management domain. Then the only alternative could be outsourcing the whole gamut of future workload to a body with little exposure to the real perspective.

Consider the case of the wholesale merger of the economic cadre with the administrative cadre. Undoubtedly, the whole transformation process would take a considerable period, and problems to creep into the process could be more severe than the problems that led to the merger. As per the gazette, the government also amended the Bangladesh Civil Services (Reorganisation) Order, 1980, to erase the entry of BCS (Economic), which would also reduce the number of cadres to 27 from the previous 28 in the civil service. There was discrimination in the promotion and other perks. Still, there was more discrimination before the Bangladesh Civil Services (Re-organization) Order, 1980, which created a separate economic cader with a little fuss.

The establishment of the Bangladesh Planning Commission in 1972 emboldened the spirit of the Father of the Nation, who viewed the Bangladesh Planning Commission as a professional body; the placements of distinguished economists as members of the Planning Commission with Professor Nurul Islam as Deputy Chairman manifested the urgency of a roadmap through which a war-ravaged economy could be revamped. Indeed, the merger downgraded the role of the Planning Commission as a professional body because of the apparent diversity of the nature of work; a deputy secretary who has prolonged exposure to field-level administration lacks basic theoretical and working knowledge to work as deputy chief (?)/ deputy secretary in any wing of the planning commission say for example in the General Economics Division or physical or social-economic infrastructure division or the programming division responsible for the preparation of the Annual Development Program. Again, the performance of a mid-level official would be horrendous, who spends six or seven years in the Planning Commission working on national income data as NDC [ Nezarat Deputy Collector] in field administration. Is it possible for an individual to discharge responsibility both as a magistrate and as a project specialist? One possibility is that members can work in the Planning Division responsible for the administration. Still, the minute scale operation in the Planning Division, in comparison to the whole structure of planning activities, obfuscates or clouds the wholesale merger. The merger brings another immediate problem. With a surplus of officials in the mid-tiers to higher tires in administration, is it feasible and economical to place three additional secretaries in a single post of joint chief or two secretaries as division chief in the planning commission?

The cooperative, information, and statistical cadre are also specialized by nature, like the education, fisheries, and agriculture cadre. Competency demands a road map for each cadre with explicit incentives and perks so that members of this cadre attain proficiency during their service length. It is more appropriate that a member of the agriculture sector should man the top position in the ministry of agriculture or research unit in agriculture. A division chief in Planning Commission could be more fitting for the role of a Member of the Planning commission than any other source. Dexterity demands that a member of the general information cadre write the speech of the Prime Minister or the country’s President.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics [ BBS], with field levels and multiple subsidiary units, is now a professional body and works as the mouthpiece of the Government of Bangladesh as the sole data dissemination unit. Indeed, it has certain deficiencies, but you can not consider a viable alternative that could serve the purpose more professionally. The members of the statistical cadre are attached to BBS’s different functional units.

The Ministry of Planning, with its two organs, Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation [IMED] and Statistics Division, are indispensable in facing the challenges of the path to graduation to developing country status. Even with a side condition of the IMF support of SDR 4.5 billion, the long-due quarterly GDP series is awaiting. Still, you can not designate another unit to perform the task professionally. There are deficiencies in certain areas regarding the quality and validity of the data, but the convergences with other macro aggregates are possible through constructive suggestions. Consider an institute that survived the ordeal of time over five decades of existence. The professionals attached to such units are assets and should be given incentives for innovation and drive.

The evolving technology and artificial intelligence are driving us toward infinite challenges. There will be many more challenges ahead. Clustering with allied skills could be a viable alternative for survival. There could be a planning, finance, and commerce cluster, a Public Administration Reform Commission proposal from 1996-2001. Economic diplomacy is more critical than geo-political diplomacy. It is more important to designate professionals with expertise in business to man the position of commercial wing of the crucial missions abroad than to abolish the cadre. The uniformity in the grades and scales of pay of different cadres, either in the general administration or the specialized cadre of the Republic, is a timely demand and should be accommodated with a sympathetic tone.

I remember the shabby outlook of the Planning Commission when I joined as a research officer in the General Economics Division in the late eighties. I worked with many distinguished economists, but unfortunately, with now excellent outlook, the new entry in the cadre service may not get that professional input. What could be the status and vision of the Ministry of Planning without professional input? We could be guided by the examples of India in their professional ethics and devotion to time-honored institutions.

The writer teaches at BRAC University and BIDS as an adjunct Faculty in the Master’s Program in Economics. He can be contacted at [email protected].