According to the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules 1979, all public servants shall submit a statement of assets showing any increase or decrease of property after every five years to the government through the usual channel. But it is very unfortunate to note that most of the public servants do not follow the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules 1979. And even, most of the ministries and divisions are reluctant to put into effect the mandatory provision. Besides, they do not have any database system to keep records of wealth statements of their employees.
Reportedly, the public administration ministry in a letter asked all ministries and divisions to submit government employees’ wealth statements. Following the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s directive in a bid to establish good governance and ensure transparency and accountability, the public administration ministry came up with this instruction. The ministries and divisions have also been asked to develop a database of government employees’ wealth statements under the Public Service Act 2018.’
According to the rules, the government employees must take prior permission to buy or sell immovable properties. We hope all government employees of different offices under all the ministries and divisions will submit their wealth statements following the instruction of the public administration ministry.
Government employees must submit their
wealth statements following the instruction
of the public administration ministry
It is needless to mention that the submission of wealth statements will reduce corruption and irregularities Therefore, we expect this drive will continue from now on and regular monitoring will eventually make all the government offices corruption-free.
The government must compel all ministries and divisions to maintain the provision and implement the rules as it has adopted a zero-tolerance policy for corruption in order to establish good governance and root out irregularities, corruption and mismanagement in all sectors. Apart from the government employees, we think the public representatives like lawmakers, upazila chairmen, city and municipality mayors and councilors and union parishad chairmen and members must also submit their up-to-date wealth statement. And if a single taka is found beyond their submitted wealth statements, the government will confiscate them. We believe that all the ministries and divisions will maintain transparency and never tolerate any irregularities conducted by government officials and employees.
