Despite having an approval from the Secretary Committee on Administration Reform, some around 1,736 Food Inspectors and Silo Supervisors of the Directorate General of Food have lost their Class II status, just within 15 days of being upgraded.
Earlier on April 24, the food ministry cancelled the order for upgrading their status to Class II from Class III mentioning that a dispute had risen in the public administration ministry as the food ministry order issued earlier had not followed proper procedures and necessary documents were not submitted.
However, affected officials of the directorate claimed that they were made victims as authorities were pursuing a controversial recruitment process to fill 1,552 vacant posts for officers and staff.
“According to recruitment rules, the DG food has no authority to recruit anyone in any Class II posts,” they claimed.
Saying that the Public Services Commission was the sole authority to approve recruitment in Class I and Class II posts, they further claimed that the directorate had already finalised the recruitment of 328 inspector posts and thus, annulled the upgrading order to keep the posts vacant.
On April 9, some 1,667 Food Inspectors and 69 Silo Supervisors of directorate were upgraded to Class II after receiving approval from the Secretary Committee on Administration Reform, led by the cabinet secretary, and the public administration ministry and finance ministry.
At the same time, the DG Food also published results of a recruitment test, held on May 25, 2013, for appointing 328 Food Inspectors and 13 Supervisors.
The results of recruiting 1,552 posts in 10 categories were stalled for a long time amid allegations of irregularities in selecting candidates.
The results approved recruitment of 175 Food Sub-Inspectors, 405 ASI of Food, 15 Accountants, 5 Data Entry Operators, 51 Upper Division Assistants, 503 Lower Division Assistants, 16 Auditors and 41 Assistant Operators.
Bangladesh Food Inspector Association’s General Secretary Imdadul Islam Sikder told the Dhaka Tribune: “It is not only about the affected officials but also a matter of great concern for 6,000 officers working as Food Inspectors, Silo Supervisors, Food Sub-Inspectors and Assistant Sub-Inspectors in the directorate.
“We have discussed the issue with the authorities concerned and they have assured us to solve the problem within a short time. We will wait for a week for a positive result, otherwise, we will start a movement to achieve our expected status,” he added.
Rejecting the allegation, Food Minister Kamrul Islam yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune: “The order had been cancelled for amending the circular as there was a mistake in the proposal which was issued as gazette notification. We are going to issue the order again as soon as possible.”
“There was no ill motive or irregularities. We are working to upgrade the status of the officers as their salary structure had already been upgraded to Class-II level in 2006,” he added.
