The government has created a Facebook group and directed all its executives to become the group’s members in a bid to use the social media forum for discussing development and innovative issues.
A number of officials claim that the government initiative is first of its kind in the world to involve officials from entry to secretary level in dialogues at a common place.
Secretary Abul Kalam Azad of the Prime Minister’s Office recently sent a letter dated July 10 to all ministries, divisions and other government offices, directing them to join the Facebook group.
The UNDP’s Access to Information (A2I) programme is operating and maintaining the group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/publicserviceinnovationblog/), said some sources.
According to the letter, the “Public Service Innovation Bangladesh” blog will allow officials to place recommendations for policy issues and problems.
“Through this initiative the process to accept Facebook as the government’s services delivery process has started,” said Manik Mahmud, IT consultant of the A2I and the moderator of the group.
“We hope around one lakh officers will join the group within a short time,” he said.
When the PMO issued the letter the group had 3,147 members, but as of yesterday morning the membership increased to 4,419 including 41 secretaries. Officials said the group was receiving 50-100 joining requests every day.
Manik Mahmud said: “We have found some service delivery processes in the USA and Australia, but those are mainly related to education and agriculture. We have found nothing like this around the world.”
Replying to a question, an A2I official said any political post would be immediately deleted.
However, there are officers who are not welcoming the initiative.
ICT Division Secretary Nazrul Islam Khan, who was previously the director of the A2I project, expressed concerns that it would also create scopes for sensitive government information to get leaked.
“Even the Facebook authority can follow the group and get such information. We could rather create some other protected platform or blog,” Nazrul told the Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.
An official at the Election Commission said he had to create a second Facebook account to get involved with the group because he did not want to tag his personal Facebook profile with this group.
“Lots of my Facebook friends are involved in politics and some post political comments and ideas. Joining the government group with my personal profile, I could easily be coloured because of those posts!” said the official, requesting not to be named.
In fact, there has already been discussions over this issue. An officer raised the question if anyone could hold two Facebook IDs.
Group moderator Manik said: “We know this type of questions may arise and we are well prepared to handle those.”
The A2I has also established another Facebook group restricted only to secretaries.
