Are Bhutan’s Powerful Secretaries Running A Parallel Government?
By Tenzing Lamsang
A recent cold war between the National Council (NC) and the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) over a procedure established by the CoS, that has put the RTI Bill in danger, raises questions on the degree of control and coordination exercised by the new ministers over their secretaries.
A member of the NC, on the condition of anonymity, said that the issue at hand was part of a larger problem of ministers or the Cabinet being unable to control or rein in their Secretaries and other senior bureaucrats.
The controversy arose as the CoS, comprising of the 10 Secretaries and the Cabinet Secretary, a few months after the 2013 elections, came up with a resolution stating all requests for information and presentation to the NC and National Assembly had to come through the Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretariat.
The NC, which wanted a presentation of the RTI Bill from the MoIC, in turn cited its own rules and protocol to summon agencies, which resulted in a logjam as the MoIC declined to present the RTI Bill starting around one month back. The Cabinet Secretary claimed that the CoS resolution was informed to the Cabinet.
However, when this paper contacted two senior ministers, none of them were aware of the CoS resolution, and one of them said it was never discussed in the Cabinet. In fact, after the matter became a public controversy, the Prime Minister had to recently step in to direct the Cabinet Secretary to allow the MoIC presentation in NC, but the damage was done as the NC has said it is too late for any presentation.
The NC member said that it was unprecedented for the CoS to take such a major policy decision when policy decisions are supposed to be taken by the Cabinet.
A parallel govt?
The issue, apart from raising some questions over the role of CoS, is also leading to questions on the relationship between the elected ministers and senior bureaucrats, especially with reports of Secretaries, in some ministries, playing a more active role than ministers.
There was also a recent instance of a senior Secretary openly questioning a government directive on issuing advertisements fairly and not blacklisting any media house for advertisement. Some other Secretaries, it has been learnt, have ignored the directive that comes straight from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The issue, however, is not new as even some new ministers under the previous DPT government had to endure and work with muscular Secretaries, some of whom initially even superseded ministers in taking decisions.
There is growing apprehension, including from one MP of the ruling party, that the senior bureaucracy runs a virtual ‘parallel government’ with an elected government.
An observer said, “Earlier under Monarchy, the civil servants were accountable to His Majesty, but with democracy and a strong focus on keeping apolitical civil servants, the senior civil servants are neither accountable to His Majesty or to politicians and have thus developed into independent power centers.”
His Majesty the King on the National Day address of December 17, 2013 stressed on the fact that there needed to be better coordination between government agencies and that some agencies were exerting too much independence at the cost of overall harmony.
Lot of powers but little accountability for Secretaries
The ongoing, but so far, invisible power struggle between ministers and secretaries has in a large part been caused by aspects of legislations like RCSC Act and BCSR, which while maintaining the independent and apolitical nature of the bureaucracy, in terms of promotions, transfers and terminations, had little to offer on the accountability of senior bureaucrats. There is also little by way of the exact nature of relationship between senior bureaucrats and ministers.
The laws also give enormous powers to the Secretary, as the Head of the Human Resource Committee, to decide the promotions and disciplinary actions for officials below the EX 3 level. This is already in addition the vast administrative and financial powers of the Secretary.
The job ‘Position Description’ for Secretaries given by Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) goes further to make the Secretary, a virtually unelected minister of the ministry.
The job description for a Secretary reads, “The position receives only minimum supervision from the minister, Cabinet, and the Government. Such instruction may be the conceptual framework or policy interpretation. The position should work independently, requiring independent exercise of judgment.”
It has so far been said that the job of the minister or Cabinet is to make policies, while the bureaucracy headed by the Secretary has to implement them. However, the job description listing out the duties of the Secretary says their work is to, “direct and oversee the formulation of policies and plans for the ministry.”
The Job description, apart from vesting all major administrative and financial powers in a ministry with the Secretary, also goes onto say that the secretary is the “CEO” of the ministry.
It also says that the Secretary shall supervise, monitor and evaluate the work of the department heads directly and others through the department heads.
In addition to the vast powers conferred on a Secretary, the job description has nothing in it that makes the secretary accountable to the minister. The only vague mention is that “the position is the highest in the hierarchy and is the administrative head of the ministry, directly reporting to the minister.”
However, if a Secretary does fail to perform their duties properly or does not cooperate with the minister for doing official work then there is little the minister can do as all career issues of the Secretary are decided by the RCSC alone.
Even in the case of transfers, the BCSR lists the post of Secretary as a sensitive post and discourages any transfer before four years out of the five year term of a Secretary. Even in case transfers of Secretaries do happen, it is normally handed by the RCSC. The RCSC Act says that in case the Cabinet wants to get involved in deciding a transfer, it will have to consult with the RCSC. The selection of Secretaries by the government has to done from a list nominated by the RCSC.
The Secretary is not alone as even when it comes to Director and Dzongdas, the RCSC has all the say putting a big question mark on the government’s performance management system and performance agreements signed with various senior bureaucrats. The RCSC has yet to accept the government’s performance management system to be a factor in promotions and other professional decisions of senior civil servants looked after by the RCSC.
A united front
Apart from their own individual powers, the CoS is the second most powerful executive body after the Cabinet where all presentations have to be made before it can be sent to the Cabinet. The CoS meets every Thursday to decide on intra and inter ministry administrative issues, coordination among ministries, and it also offers advice to the Cabinet. It comes up with resolutions and Secretaries make presentations to each other and collective decisions of the CoS are complied with.
The same Secretaries also are the heads, board directors and commission members of key organizations like the DHI board, National Land Commission, BICMA and various others boards and commissions.
The Cabinet Secretary, Dasho Penden Wangchuk, the head of CoS and also the senior most Secretary, in response to a question, clarified that there was no ‘parallel government’ of senior bureaucrats, and in fact, to supplement, complement and support the government of the day.
The Cabinet Secretary said that CoS had been formed following an executive order before the advent of democracy and that the former Prime Minister had even approved the terms of reference drawn up by CoS.
He said that CoS meet to discuss mainly administrative, technical and coordination issues among the secretaries of various ministries. He said that CoS also offered advice to the Cabinet on various presentations and also offered expert advice on matters that the PM wanted them to work on.
Dasho Penden Wangchuk said that coordination among the agencies would really suffer if there was no CoS.
RCSC speaks
The new RCSC Chairman, Karma Tshiteem, also shared his views on the role of the senior bureaucracy and their relationship with elected leaders.
He said, “My view is that the relationship is purely professional, and by that, I mean that the political leadership which is the Cabinet or ministers should have the full benefit of the professional, technical and neutral views of bureaucrats on any matter, but ultimately the decision is taken by politicians. The civil servants’ role is mainly administrative and taking care of human resource and financial issues and ensuring that Human Resource issues are handed in an apolitical manner.”
The Chairman said that the civil service is the “permanent government” and that it was in the interests of the country and that there is a strong bureaucracy to insure that the national development objectives, both in the medium and long term, can be met.
The PM’s take
The Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said, “I have no reason, right now, for major concerns. There are several areas where the civil service is executing government policy, and if a few talk behind my back, it does not matter as I don’t want a sycophantic civil servant, but I definitely want the job to be done.”
The PM said that a parallel government would be one where Secretaries functioned on their own, but he had seen no signs of it as they obeyed instructions and the government was not undermined.
On CoS the PM said, “So far, I have no reason to be concerned about CoS, and I think it is an important and useful mechanism where the top civil servants of all ministries get together to ensure that work is coordinated and no one is missing important work. It is also an important mechanism for them to make recommendations to the Cabinet and there are many instance where the Cabinet has given them work to study policy issues, etc.”
The PM said that CoS is composed of government Secretaries and while they are apolitical, they work according to the priorities set by the government and that the government would remain accountable for their actions.
The PM also clarified that whatever policies that are made by the CoS has to be endorsed and accepted by the Cabinet to come into effect.