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Bureaucracy OSD-strung

650 getting paid, doing no job; political evaluation, promotion-glut leave admin in a chaos

M Abul Kalam Azad and Rashidul Hasan
He tore down illegal billboards of Arafat Rahman Koko, younger son of BNP chief Khaleda Zia, when the party was in power in 2001-2006. The then chief executive officer of Dhaka City Corporation did not stop even after Koko had himself rushed to the scene.
Biman saw profit when he was its managing director in 2006-09. The national airliner, which was incurring a loss of Tk 250-300 crore a year, tasted profit for the second time in its history during his tenure.
As the upazila nirbahi officer of Gafargaon, Mymensingh, he was sent a shroud as a threat for not letting student leaders cheat in a public examination.
The man, MA Momen, is known as a brilliant officer in the civil service who discharged his duties
efficiently, sincerely and without bowing down to any pressure.
Naturally, many hoped an officer of this stature would definitely get promotions and good postings. However, nothing like that happened.
Momen was made officer on special duty (OSD) in January, 2009, right after the Awami League-led government assumed office. And it was not for his poor performance or professional misconduct, but apparently for being posted in important positions and performing well during the BNP-Jamaat tenure.
The worst blow for him came in August this year. The government sent him on forced retirement.
Momen, an officer of BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) regular batch 1982, was not alone to suffer this. Others too were branded as BNP men and had to face the wrath of the AL-led government.
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Momen's batch mate Sheikh Abdur Rashid, who ranked first in the BCS merit list, also had a similar fate. From home ministry deputy secretary he was made OSD in January 2009.
The practice of making officers OSDs continued to persist. Since 2009, the number of OSDs took a leap from 250 to 650.
Initially, many officers were made OSDs over political reasons, but in the end it was promotions without enough posts that caused the rise in the number of OSDs. Some officers have also been kept idle due to professional misconduct and poor performance.
Currently, four secretaries, 39 additional secretaries, 338 joint secretaries and 100 deputy secretaries are sitting idle as OSDs. Posting them is almost impossible as there are not enough posts vacant.
The OSD secretaries are Md Ebadot Ali, Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, Md Nurul Haque and Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan.
An OSD has no other duty except for attend-
ing office and signing the attendance register. He or she gets salary and other benefits, excluding transport allowance.
Cabinet Secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said, "We have already posted some of them and trying to post some more. But the problem is that there were so many promotions and hardly enough vacant posts."
Senior Secretary of Public Administration Ministry Abdus Sobhan Sikder blamed excessive recruitment and promotions for so many officers on OSD.
Successive governments have made many civil servants OSDs and spent crores of taka paying for their salaries and benefits. According to a recent report of the pubic administration ministry, a total of 3,605 officials have been made OSDs between 2004 and 2012.
Many OSD are now engaged in different activities. Some joined multinational or private companies while some are studying or writing books. There are also few who are just spending time with their families.
Meanwhile, the policy deprived the country from their services for years and impacted the civil service negatively.
Recalling history, a senior official said in 1952, the then Pakistani government first used the OSD option to probe a shooting incident.
"Judge TH Ellias was made OSD for probing the incident and he was asked to submit the report within three months," the official said.
In independent Bangladesh, the Bangabandhu government in 1974 first made some Bangladeshi officials stranded in Pakistan OSDs to place them on their return to Bangladesh.
Military ruler HM Ershad, now chief of Jatiya Party, during his nine-year tenure made only a few officials OSDs as punishment for addressing an anti-Ershad rally.
The OSD provision, which was originally introduced to promote, transfer or train civil servants, began to be misused for political gains by the last BNP-led four-party government and the outgoing AL-led government.