The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pulack Ghatack

The snail's pace of the Caretaker Government's reform programmes in the administrative and business arena seems unlikely to remove the decade-old backlogs as the Government's tenure is likely to end by December.

The Government, in a landmark decision to remove bureaucratic, legal and procedural complexities, formed a high profile Regulatory Reform Commission (RRC) headed by former Adviser Dr Akbar Ali Khan.

The Government also formed a Better Business Forum (BBF) headed by Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed to identify barriers to business and reform the administration by removing all the obstacles.

The RRC is mandated to review all government rules and regulations, and identify those that needs to be annulled, modified, or left unchanged, and make suitable recommendations to the government to infuse dynamism into governance, administration and the economy.

The RRC with its secretariat at the Board of Investment (BoI) initially worked relentlessly and made as many as 31 recommendations for immediate implementation.

Regarding all RRC recommendations, the Chief Adviser's Office has already referred them to the line ministries with a strict direction to implement those, sources concerned said.

But, red-tapism, bureaucratic tangles and some pending cases in the High Court are hindering the progress in the reforms, apart from a few. Some ministries are also allegedly not cooperating with the RRC.

The RRC has selected 202 laws and regulations for review and amendment, and drafted their synopsis. For this purpose, the RRC sent notifications to 47 ministries or departments back in November 2007.

However, only nine ministries or departments have responded to RRC's request for assistance and cooperation, an official with the RRC secretariat said.

Ailing Commission Chairman Akbar Ali Khan went on sick leave in May. The activities of the RRC and implementation of its suggestions at the ministry level could not progress much since then.

Critical voice of the noted personality also put moral pressure on the Government. However, Dr Akbar Ali, who is now back home from his overseas treatment, is unlikely to join work any time soon. "The doctors have prescribed him complete rest to regain health," said a voice responding to a phone call from the New Nation last night.

However, the one-year term of the Commission will expire on October 31 and now the Government is mulling to extend its life at least for another year, highly placed sources in Government said.

The RRC is focusing on 20 to 30 most important regulatory areas, and its officials expect to finalise its comprehensive reform recommendations by way of a final report by October.

The RRC recommended that the Directorate of Land Registration should be transferred from the Law Ministry to the Ministry of Land to allow a "one-stop service" for land registration.

Implementation of it is hanging in the balance as the High Court has pronounced a three-month stay order responding to a writ against the Government move.

However, remarkable progress in the implementation stage was noticed in few cases. Following RRC recommendations, the Government had started to publish gazette notifications on the website and developing a full-fledged website incorporating all previous gazettes.

The RRC suggested that all proposed regulations must be published in draft form for feedback from civil society members before finalisation. This recommendation now awaits approval of the Council of Advisers.

The commission recommended online registration with BoI, uniform fees or charges for registration of investment projects and reforms in BoI to make it dynamic.

A consultant has been appointed for implementation of online registration and BoI discussed the issue of uniform fees.

The commission proposed that Bangladesh Bank should alone take decision regarding private sector foreign loans without informing the BoI. Recently, the Chief Adviser's Office has directed BoI and BB to implement it within two months.

The RRC suggested legalisation of "courier service" in the country, by amending the Post Office Act 1898. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is taking steps to implement this. A draft amendment to the Post Office Act has also been prepared.

An SRO was issued on May 22 to reduce the time of giving location clearance and environment clearance certificates according to RRC suggestions.

The government has also implemented the recommendation regarding bonded warehouse licencing process.

The proposals to annul the "Sarai Act 1867," and updating of "The Bangladesh Hotels and Restaurants Ordinance 1982" are pending for final recommendation.

On the other hand, the BBF has so far put forward 126 recommendations for execution in the short, medium and long terms. Of them, all the six short-term recommendations were implemented through executive orders, according to official sources.

However, only half of the 56 medium-term (1-2 months) recommendations were implemented, while the remaining 64 others were for implementation either in the long-term or to be reviewed further by the working groups of the BBF.