The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE incumbent caretaker government has been stressing from the start of its tenure that it attaches high priority to a lively and functional press as they can learn from the media many things needed for good governance. Whether the government is harnessing the services of the press or media for its purpose, however, is another matter. But the same is not happening because the people at the helm of power are not probably paying much attention to what the press or the media as a whole have to say about the activities or performances of their departments or ministries. Usually, the government functionaries have built-in arrangement for access to regular clippings from newspaper articles and reports about the functioning of their departments and ministries. The government-run corporations employ public relations officers (PROs) for a similar informative role. The PROs are supposed to keep the chairmen and departmental heads well informed about people's grievances and all disclosures about the underperformance of the corporations so that corrective steps can be taken based on those.

The government in many cases can gain from acting on information supplied by newspapers and the electronic media. Therefore, the key functionaries who really have public service in mind should do well to advise their personal staffs also to prepare paper clippings reports and comments about the departments and ministries on a regular basis and to submit the same to them for scrutiny. They should without fail read newspapers every day and also watch television programmes regularly. Such habits can yield for them a great deal of information about the field level experiences of people in their interactions with their departments and ministries. The same can be of immense value in redressing grievances through taking corrective measures. Not only they ought to practice the daily scanning of newspapers and listening to the electronic media to learn what the people think of their activities, their lapses, their shortcomings and inadequacies, the greatest need is for this culture to bloom where it would have the most positive impact-at the Chief Adviser's Secretariat.

Surely, some people there go through newspapers and take selected clippings to the notice of the Chief Adviser. But there is probably room for this system to be further improved. Every day, the media in Bangladesh produce a large number of investigative reports that relate mainly to corruption, underperformance in government organisations and an assortment of other ills. The tendency among most government officials is, however, to ignore those on the plea of there being so many media outlets and only a few of those being credible. Therefore, a system should be devised for top officials to be obliged to scan media reports and comments in relation to their departments and, more importantly, for them to be similarly obliged to take swift actions as and when needed. Government must have feedback from the media and respond to them to improve governance.