The Public Administration Ministry is yet to make any move to fill up the three vacant posts of secretaries who retired from services very recently.
The three are Parliament Secretariat’s senior secretary Ashraful Moqbul, Agriculture secretary SM Nazmul Islam, Science and Technology secretary Rafiqul Islam and another OSD secretary Mohammad Golam Quddus.
The secretaries retired from services on December 29 and 31 of the last year.
Filling up the vacant posts of secretaries is to be done immediately after the bureaucrat’s retirement, but the ministry concerned is yet to take any step in this regard.
The offices to be assumed by bureaucrats in the same post remain empty.
According to the ministry officials, the secretaries who retired from services tried to arrange contractual appointments, and to this end, sent files to the Prime Minister’s Office for approval.
But the PMO turned down their request.
The officials said the retirees had already got a two-year extension in service beyond their retirement age of public service.
If they got contractual appointments it would stand in the way promotion procedures for additional secretaries, they added.
A section of influential additional secretaries also opposed the move to bag the appointments on contract basis, the officials said.
Public Administration Ministry’s Senior Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder told the Dhaka Tribune, “The ministry has sent a list to the premier’s office for filling up the vacancies, but we are yet to get any instruction from the high-ups of the government.”
“We will assign new officers to the posts immediately after getting instruction. It may take time. The files would be approved after January 5,” he said.
A good number of high-level civil bureaucrats serving as senior secretary, secretary and additional secretary in different ministries or divisions and some important offices will retire by 2014 March, two years after extension of their services.
The bureaucrats got a two-year extension in service while the government extended the retirement age of public servants to 59 years from 57 on December 26, 2011.
