Concentration of authority and rent seeking behaviour in bureaucracy: An evidence of ineffective governance in Bangladesh

Abstract

Political leadership and public administration run the government of Bangladesh. Political wing is short tenured under a democratic system, but the public administration is permanent. An administrative process in Bangladesh made bureaucracy most powerful in the country. It has accountability to none but has controlling authority on all components of state including political leadership. This absolute power gives unlimited opportunity to administrative bureaucracy and other parts of the public administration of the country for exercising rent seeking behaviour. This paper evaluates the experience of common people of the country who used to interact with public administration for receiving public services using primary data collected through a field survey. The level of rent seeking is very high in public administration. The four major types of rent seeking behaviour among public officials are bribe, nepotism, and favouritism, use of official power to mischief common people and negligence to official duties and responsibilities. People used to suffer from rent seeking behaviour uniformly irrespective of their level of income and educational status. The root of rent seeking is the administrative bureaucracy. People face financial loss, delays in getting services from officials. It is necessary to reduce absolute power of public bureaucracy to control rent seeking of public administration.