Senior government officials whose positions as office chiefs entitle them to minister, state minister or deputy minister status, but who preside over institutions that have a fixed organogram, will no longer receive the benefits they used to receive under a 1973 law.
The cabinet division issued a gazette notification to this effect yesterday, signed by cabinet secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan.
High officials affected by this new provision will no longer receive privileges given under The Ministers, Ministers of State and Deputy Ministers (Remuneration and Privileges) Act, 1973, including daily allowances, medical allowances, or having personal staff appointed to them.
The rationale behind this move was that officials who were technically entitled to ministerial privileges but who oversaw organisations that had their own organograms and therefore their own source of privileges, benefits and support staff, did not need redundant privileges provided under the original law.
The new order does not apply to those who do not preside over an existing organisation. Therefore the special envoy and advisers to the prime minister and deputy leader of the parliament were exempt, the notification said.
Officials of the cabinet division said the chairman of the University Grants Commission, Privatisation Board, Board of Investment and Law Commission, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, the Bangladesh Ambassador to the USA and the Bangladesh High Commissioner to India would be among those whose benefits will be curtailed by the order.