The bureaucracy of Bangladesh is likely to experience a wave of promotions in April.
In what could possibly be the last shuffle during the current government’s tenure, some 250 government officials are likely to be promoted to the levels of joint and additional secretaries by the Superior Selection Board (SSB), sources said.
The SSB is an administrative body constituted by the Ministry of Establishment, which consists of a panel of secretaries headed by the cabinet secretary, to scrutinize government servants' service records and recommend them for promotion to higher positions in the civil service, including autonomous bodies.
“The Superior Selection Board will finalise the list in April. We have already prepared the list, which will soon be placed before the SSB”, Mohibul Haque, joint secretary of the Appointment, Posting and Deputation (APD) wing of the Ministry of Public Administration, told Dhaka Tribune last week.
The Ministry of Public Administration will issue the final promotion order after getting the prime minister’s nod, Haque said.
Sources said that the SSB would hold a meeting on Monday to consider the people to be promoted.
Haque said that officials at all levels of the administration would be promoted in phases. Those, whose promotions had been pending for a long time, would be prioritised.
In the latest round of shuffle in February, 182 senior assistant secretaries were promoted to deputy secretaries and 20 other senior assistant secretaries on deputation or on lien were to receive promotions when they rejoined service.
A senior official of the Ministry of Public Administration said that the government was very cautious about the list this time because it did not want to give raise controversy, as this could be the last round of promotions before the parliamentary election.
Following the February promotions, the number of deputy secretaries stood at 1,727. The organogram of the civil administration, however, approves only 830.
In January, 17 additional secretaries, who were working as acting secretaries in different ministries and government offices, were promoted to secretaries.
At present, there are 625 joint and 252 additional secretaries. The approved numbers are 250 and 108, respectively.
With the upcoming promotions, the numbers of deputy and joint secretaries will be lowered, but they would still be more than the approved number of posts.
In the last massive round of promotion in February 2012, a total of 649 officers, mostly from the administrative cadre, were promoted to the ranks of additional secretary, joint secretary or deputy secretary, in a violation of the formal structure of the administration.
