Speakers at a roundtable in Dhaka said Bangladesh needs a professional, capable and depoliticised bureaucracy to establish good governance. The discussion, titled “State Building and Bureaucracy: Southeast Asian Experience and Bangladesh’s Reality,” was held Saturday at the Tofazzal Hossain Manik Miah Hall of the National Press Club, organised by the Center for Policy Analysis and Advocacy. The organisation’s president and former secretary Dr Mohammad Shariful Alam chaired the event.

Rajshahi University public administration professor Dr Shafiul Islam presented a written keynote by civil service expert Dr Yusuf Zarif. Citing research, the paper said professional and politically neutral bureaucracies played a major role in economic development and good governance across several Southeast Asian countries. It referred to the experiences of Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore, arguing that a sound bureaucracy cannot be built while disregarding merit.

The keynote claimed bureaucracy had been legally weakened and politicised by successive rulers since Bangladesh’s independence, and said this policy continued after the July Revolution. Other speakers said past governments used the administration for partisan interests, harming the election system and enabling indiscriminate money laundering. They called for reforms to strengthen accountability, ethical resolve and professional capacity, and urged the government to reverse the appointment of political leaders to various state corporations.