Civil Service Reform Act To Be Adopted in 2010

The Awami League government of Bangladesh will enact civil service legislation that will regulate the appointment and promotion of individuals within the government public service ranks.

Though the Constitution of Bangladesh requires the nomination and promotion of individuals within government public service by an regulated institutional instrument, none has ever been devised.  In a public attempt to draw down the whiff of corruption within government, the Awami League has made moves to secure civil service legislation.  Indeed, a draft of the language should be finalized by May, according to the Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) Minister Syed Ashraful Islam.

Consider that the U.S government did not have a regulated civil service until the assassination of President James Garfield, who was killed by Charles J. Guiteau, a singularly incompetent man who thought he was owed a place in the Garfield administration.   This belief of obligatory employment was founded on two other, prior, beliefs: Guiteau believed that speeches he’d written in support of the candidate were partly responsible for Garfield’s victory against his Democratic opponent.  Secondly he believed that employment in government was principally a function of private clientelism.  Unfortunately for Garfield this belief was not ill-founded; politics of the time worked because of private clientelism.  Guiteau’s belief was in fact true belief–knowledge.   According to this premise one was promised a position in public service if one were deemed to have been sufficiently helpful to the politics of the incoming or incumbent administration.  To be summarily dismissed, otherwise, was to face the prospect that one could no longer, if ever again,  work in Washington D.C.  After all, one’s fortunes ran in tandem with the party leadership’s fortunes in office.

Upon passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, this widely-shared belief vanished almost over-night.  Appointment, promotion and retirement was based on publicly known and accepted meritocratic criteria.  Political affiliation now had little, if anything, to do with public service employment.  It is entirely feasible that government service and allocation became more efficient as merit, not, say, marriage, regulated government functioning.

One can expect similar results if Bangladesh adopts similar reform of its civil service.  For once, government roles will not disappear overnight as one party or the other slides into office.  Furthermore, this is an important move in building public bureacratic capacity.  It is not enough that senior post-holders within a party become ministers once the party as a whole wins office.  There have to be some holdover appointments who can keep the machinery of government running smoothly.  What’s more, government should run in lockstep–perhaps it should sometimes supersede its own bounds as long as it attains supervenient efficiency–with its economy and social circumstances, regardless of the identity of the party in power.