Bangladesh News

The interim government is going to set a standard of integrity through a ‘national integrity strategy’ (NIS) to be maintained at different institutions of state organs, but its effective implementation depends entirely on the political will of the future governments.

Experts involved in formulation of NIS documents are initially identifying problems or challenges in the state and non-state institutions, defining goals and devising strategies to achieve those.

The state institutions where the strategies would be employed are parliament, executive, judiciary, civil service, local government, attorney general, Public Service Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission, Election Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and Ombudsman.

On the other hand, the media, NGOs, civil society, political parties, private sector and family among the non-state institutions would come under its purview.

Sources involved say though the present government is planning to adopt the national strategy, its longer-term implementation lies with the commitment and political will of the future political governments.

“We’re formulating NIS taking opinions from cross-section of people including the politicians,” says an expert.

“The implementation of NIS would be smooth if the political parties reach a consensus during formulation of the strategies that they will maintain it without considering who is forming the government,” he adds.

Commenting on the issue, Barrister Manzoor Hasan, director, Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), Brac University, said: “The state has the main responsibility in implementing a national integrity strategy. Other major players are both the private and non-profit sectors.

“The underlying idea is to establish a working partnership among various actors common in a society. If we look at successful economies today, we see greater integration of public with private sector to increase efficiency and quality.

“Citizens will pay taxes, institutions will become more effective and accountable, economy will prosper, new investment will take place, fewer people will remain unemployed and a more equitable society will be established. This can only happen with political and administrative commitment altogether with citizens’ participation,” he added.

PARLIAMENT
“The parliament emerges as a place for fair and rationale debate, and for decision-making,” the draft NIS fixes the goal and identifies half a dozen major challenges to achieve it.

One of the major challenges for parliament is to demand accountability from the executive as it experiences insufficient accountability from the executive.

The other major challenges are to establish functioning of the parliamentary committees with proper representation as poor functioning of the committees is observed, reduce absence of inter-party and intra-party deliberations on legislative issues, avoid quorum crisis and indifference to the voice of independent opinion holders, cut ineffectiveness of Public Accounts Committee, and overcome partisanship of the Speaker and enhance capacity of the legislators and officials of the parliamentary secretariat.

Considering these challenges the experts have set some strategies to achieve the goal.

The seven strategies set to achieve the goal include forming Parliamentary Standing Committees with proportional representation of the parties in the first parliamentary session, introducing prime minister’s question & answer session of a certain time for the opposition parties, developing and introducing Rules of Procedures with a fair share of time for parliamentary parties, introducing transparent debate on C&AG’s report, strengthening the role of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and introducing regular intra-party parliamentary discussion or meetings.

EXECUTIVE
The NIS draft sets the goal of the executive as being responsive towards citizens, transparent and accountable to parliament.

It also identifies the major challenges in achieving the goal as introducing the executive’s sufficient accountability to parliament, removing partisan control of the executive over public servants, decentralising decision-making within the executive (from the Prime Minister’s Office to ministries), eliminating informal source of power and being transparent in the process of decision-making and responsive to citizen’s concerns and public inquiry.

The NIS draft sets six strategies to achieve the goal including establishing communication with the citizens, introducing a system of reasoning for all decisions of the executive, introducing a system of assets disclosures (before appointment to the executive and on completion of service) and reporting to PAC and respective Parliamentary Standing Committee.

JUDICIARY
The experts identify the goal for this state organ as “… an independent, non-partisan and effective organ of the state”.

One of the major challenges found in achieving the goal is “poor trust in judiciary even after separation”.

The experts also see people still doubt that judiciary is independent, its accountability has yet to be resolved and lawyer-judge nexus is still apprehended.

The four strategies primarily fixed to achieve the goal include making the newly created Supreme Judicial Commission functional, and recruiting additional judges for improved judge-case and handling the backlogs.

PUBLIC SERVICE
The experts formulating the NIS draft clarify that “partisan pressure by the executive and informal power base” is one of the major challenges and set the goal for this sector as “to make it impartial, efficient, effective and accountable”.

The other major challenges in this sector are insufficient salary, improper performance appraisal and incentives system, insufficient skills, equipment and resources, inefficient and traditional work process, ineffective accountability system and mechanisms, and quota system hampering quality and professionalism.

Nine strategies have initially been determined to overcome the challenges, including rightsizing the civil service, bringing efficiency and accountability, and making it competitive and innovative.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
“A people-oriented, accountable and independent local government system at district, upazila and union council level” is the goal for this sector.

About half a dozen challenges have been identified as obstacles to achieving the goal. The challenges include election of honest and qualified people in a free and fair environment to ensure representation of grassroots people in local government and making it function in a non-partisan way.

The other challenges are fair allocation of resources, exploration of local resources and empowerment of the local government system to undertake development plans, overseeing those, allocating required resources and proper management of local government activities.

The draft determines seven strategies to achieve the goal including supporting Election Commission (EC) to hold local government elections, introducing local government financing system based on equivalence principles, and fair allocation.

ATTORNEY SERVICE
The experts involved in NIS draft formulation observe the office of the AG is considered as an organ of the government than of the state.

The draft says, “The Judiciary can deliver proper justice if the attorney services represent the interest of the state.”

They also identify some other challenges in this office such as partisan appointment affecting quality of work and recent Attorney Ordinance, 2008 creating confusion regarding the role of AG and DG of Attorney Department of the ministry.

Besides identifying challenges, they also determine the goal as “the office of Attorney General emerges more as an organ of the state”.

The expert also determine six strategies to achieve the goal including the AG having liberty to exercise his functions independently without being subject to the direction or control of anyone, and being able to act as the chief executive and oath-bound under whose supervision a Director General can be appointed for controlling and administering all the attorneys of the Supreme Court and district courts.

ELECTION COMMISSION
According to the experts, challenges in the EC are lack of capacity to enforce electoral laws on time, dependency on the government and other public institutions, lack of sufficient measure to ensure accountability for wrongdoing and reaching a consensus with political parties.

They determine the goal of EC as it “emerges as a fully independent constitutional body capable of effective management of the electoral process”.

To overcome the challenges, the experts have primarily determined four strategies including introducing mechanisms to ensure accountability of EC, and establishing systems and mechanisms to collaborate with other public institutions to work effectively along the electoral process.

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
The draft finds challenges in this important body including low trust and confidence in its ability to become non-partisan, flawed recruitment system and quota system, and handicapping quality recruitment.

“Public Service Commission is established as an efficient, modern and professional institution to recruit civil servants,” it sets the goal, which can be achieved overcoming the challenges implementing strategies in NIS.

The draft NIS has fixed four strategies including reviewing the criterion and process of appointment of PSC chair and its members and introducing more recruitment based on merit and reducing the quota system.

MEDIA
People involved in NIS preparations find challenges in achieving the goal for the media.

The challenges include lack of proper measures to ensure accountability of the media, external pressure from the government, advertisers and owners, limited freedom of the media, insufficient capacity in changing media environment, and poor compensation for media people working at local level.

“Free, truthful, accountable and impartial media” is the goal, which will have to be achieved through implementing five strategies including transforming public media into autonomous institutions, enforcing the Right to Information Act and supporting capacity building of the media people on professional excellence.

POLITICAL PARTIES
Major challenges in political parties are party constitution is not properly followed, poor practice of democracy, limited role of the grassroots to nominate party candidates, no system to ensure accountability to the grassroots, and no financial transparency and accountability.

“Political parties emerge as democratically-run people’s institutions pursuing interest of their constituencies,” the draft sets the goal.

The NIS draft proposes four strategies including establishing intra-party democracy and accountability, having a “code of conduct” for political campaign, and pursuing political agenda and programmes either through the government or a shadow cabinet.

PRIVATE SECTOR
The private sector also faces some challenges including getting involved in corruption for benefits, having control over politicians by money, unfair market competition (monopoly, syndicates), poor compliance with consumer rights, and becoming bank loan defaulter.

The goal for this sector is set as “private sector increasingly complies with regulatory requirements with sustained improvement of business environment”.

The draft also fixes ten strategies to achieve the goal in the private sector.

NGOs
The NIS draft mentions several challenges that put NGO’s into question. The challenges are poor accountability (internal and external), insufficient self-regulatory mechanisms, limited access to resources and prioritisation of its allocation, poor outreach to extreme poor and remote areas limited, politicisation and overlapping of the programme.

The draft sets the goal as “NGOs are externally and internally accountable, and practise policies, systems and procedures for effective service delivery for the poor and disadvantaged groups.”

Five strategies planned to achieve the goal for NGOs include administrative measures towards establishing single registration of NGOs which receive public and foreign funding, extending outreach to ensure development services to the extreme poor in the remote areas, practising self-regulation through standardised policies, and ensuring transparency and accountability.

In addition to these, three strategies have been fixed to achieve the goal in the family sector, two for civil society, five for NGOs, four for the Anti-Corruption Commission, five for C&AG, and three for Ombudsman (not established yet).