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Citizens have criticised the survey questionnaire the public administration reform commission has put online seeking citizen opinion, saying the questions are too generic and fail to reflect the commission’s stated purpose.

On November 5, the reform commission published the questionnaire, calling on people to provide ‘well-thought-out’ answers by November 25.

Calling the questionnaire ‘vastly generic’, critics observe that it does not echo  the interim government’s good intent of ‘building a citizen-focused, efficient, accountable, and neutral public administration’ as the questionnaire states in its introductory lines.

Some officers of the civil service cadre, reportedly deprived of due recognition owing allegedly to the administration cadre’s dominance, also questioned the credibility of this reform commission which they say is dominated by retired administration cadre officers.

The questionnaire, formulated with multiple-choice questions, contains one optional and 13 compulsory questions with three possible answers from which only a single answer can be selected.

Question-2 of the questionnaire seeks responder’s view about the public administration’s neutrality over the past 15 years, providing three options for answer—completely non-partisan, slightly partisan, and completely partisan.   

Question-3 asks for answer regarding the need for public administration reform with three answer options—need to reform, partial reform and complete overhaul.

Question-4 asks the responder to identify the most important aspect for the reform for which the three answer options are—elimination of corruption, ensuring accountability, and making administration non-partisan.

Question-6 is about the responder’s experience regarding transparency and accountability in public administration, Question-7 asks what responder thinks about the behaviour of the public officials and employees.

Benefits, effectiveness, people’s involvement in local government bodies and decentralisation related questions have also been included in the questionnaire . 

Castigating criticisms particularly came from the coordinators of the Inter-Cadre Council to Eliminate Discrimination, a platform founded by 25 Bangladesh Civil Service cadres other than administration, police and foreign affairs cadres, following the fall of the Awami League regime on August 5. 

Bangladesh public administration is run by 28 civil service cadres.

‘The second question inquiring the neutrality of the public administration during the last 15 years targets a particular political party instead of its decades-old partisan characteristic,’ said Mofizur Rahman, one of the conveners of the council.

Alleging that the public administration reform commission is dominated by retired administration cadre officers, he demanded reform of the commission first.

‘Instead of field experts, administration cadre officers are leading most of the public offices, making them partisan, inefficient and, to some extent, inaccessible to the citizens,’ Mofizur said. 

Professor Syeda Lasna Kabir, a faculty at the public administration department at Dhaka University, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that the public administration reform commission’s questionnaire is ‘vastly generic’.

She presumed that the answers to the first 3–4 questions would likely be almost the same and ‘would not provide any distinct insights for reform’.

She found that the questionnaire did not ask for public views on resolving bureaucratic and political party-related complexities in public administration.

‘There are also no questions on how to involve the general people in making public administration more people-friendly. The questionnaire could have been more inquisitive,’ Lasna said.

Public administration reform commission member professor Aka Firowz Ahmad said, ‘Responders are welcome to provide expert opinion, filling the free space at the end of the questionnaire.’

The free space, however, allows only three suggestions from the responders, and is an optional part of the questionnaire.