The government's car loan scheme for its officials holding the rank and status of deputy secretary and above has backfired.
The objective behind starting the scheme was to cut the government's transportation cost and, at the same time, create an opportunity for owning personal cars by the government officials.
The second objective is being fulfilled, but not the first one.
Under the scheme, the government makes available interest-free car loans, not exceeding Tk 3.0 million, to each of the officials willing to grab the opportunity. Besides, a recipient of car loan is entitled to a monthly car maintenance allowance of Tk 50,000. In addition, the principle of cost-depreciation in relation to vehicles is reportedly applied while recovering the loans.
The basic objective behind launching the scheme was to cut the substantial expenditure that the government makes on providing full-time vehicles to its high officials.
But allegations have it that a good number of officials are still using government transports despite owning cars, purchased with loans given to them under the scheme.
Questions were raised from different quarters about the justification of the scheme when the government does not have enough resources to meet many vital needs.
In fact, the car loan scheme is designed to extend some undue benefits to a section of government officials. Calculations would show that the officials do get the ownership of cars free of cost. One benefit is that the loan is interest-free. And the other is the monthly maintenance allowance. The average maintenance cost of a car in Dhaka city runs between Tk 25,000 and Tk, 30,000. The money, thus, saved from the maintenance allowance could well be used for repaying the loans in monthly instalments.
There are allegations galore about growing inefficiency of bureaucrats. But they appear to be quite efficient in managing benefits for themselves. The political masters, too, are found to be eager to appease the former. However, overall political environment remains a great factor in the matters of granting any major concession to the bureaucracy.
Then again, the car loan facility remains to be a discriminatory one as only the high officials under the control of the Ministry of Public Administration do enjoy it. The members of other cadres are neither entitled to vehicles belonging to the government transport pool nor can they avail themselves of the car loan facility, it is alleged.
Such discrimination, according to a newspaper report, has given rise to both frustration and resentment among high officials belonging to non-administrative cadres.
Public servants are maintained with taxpayers' money. In exchange, all of them are supposed to work for the welfare of the people. However, there are lots of question about the quality of their service. Despite repeated suggestions to reform the public administration, no government has so far made any move in that direction. Instead, there have been attempts on the part of the ruling parties to politicise them. This has not only dented the image of the public servants but also caused serious damage to the quality of service.
People will not mind paying more to the government servants if they are truly efficient, competent and prompt in service delivery. And they will not surely like to see the government pampering some inefficient people at the cost of their hard-earned money.