The National Pay and Services Commission (NPSC) has reportedly recommended that the government form a separate Public Service Reform Commission in order to address “politically sensitive issues.”
These sensitive issues include the matter of officials on special duty (OSD), competitive exams for deputy secretary-level officials and lateral entry for joint secretary-level public servants, sources inside the NPSC have said.
The NPSC itself has been avoiding dealing with these sensitive issues, they said, adding that the NPSC chairman – Mohammad Farashuddin – was concerned that handling such issues might hurt the credibility of the NPSC’s upcoming report on a possible pay scale upgrade for government employees.
Several sources inside the commission told the Dhaka Tribune that the politically sensitive issues were dropped from the draft of the report, which will be submitted to the finance minister on Sunday.
A member of the commission had reportedly been advocating the inclusion of these issues in the proposed pay commission report, but the NPSC chairman opposed the move, the sources said. A proposal was also presented to introduce a rule for making public servants OSDs for only a six-month stint; but the recommendation was also scrapped for being politically sensitive.
On condition of anonymity, a commission member told the Dhaka Tribune that the upcoming report had sufficiently addressed the issues related to pay scale upgrade, but failed to make any proper observations regarding the services offered to the public servants.
At an earlier meeting of the commission, NPSC chief Farashuddin – a former Bangladesh Bank governor – admitted there was a lack of efficient officials in the government, said the commission member who was present at the meeting. The meeting also discussed a World Bank report which found that the public servants had inadequate English writing skills.
Farashuddin also said five percent public servants were now appointed under the presidential quota through lateral entry, which allowed qualified individuals to start employment at a level higher than normal entry level. These issues might be put under the purview of a Public Service Reform Commission, the NPSC member quoted the chairman as saying.
In November last year, the government formed the 17-member commission for more than 1.3 million current and former public servants.
Presently, there are more than 832,000 government employees and around 500,000 pensioners in the country.
An official of Public Administration Ministry told the Dhaka Tribune that frequent orders of promotion had resulted the number of OSDs – who get paid without having any official responsibility – to rise to nearly 600, including three secretaries, 26 additional secretaries and 228 joint secretaries.
