Retired ‘deprived’ additional secretaries demand to be made secretaries

A group of retired additional secretaries, who consider themselves ‘deprived’, met with the public administration ministry senior secretary Md Mokhlesur Rahman to place a demand seeking promotion to the rank of secretary.

Under the initiative of Deprived Retired Secretary Forum, several retired additional secretaries visited the secretariat today, Monday, at 11:00am and presented their demand to the public administration secretary.

They claimed that they had been repeatedly denied promotion during the tenure of the ousted Awami League government.

On 9 February, the public administration ministry granted promotions in retrospective to 764 retired officials who retired during the nearly 16-year tenure of the ousted Awami League government.

These promotions ranged from deputy secretary to secretary, with 119 individuals being elevated to the rank of secretary.

Retired additional secretaries who came to make their demands today, Monday told reporters that the rules have been breached in the promotion of 764 retired officers who have already been given promotions in 'retrospective'.

Retired additional secretaries also said a total of 1,540 applications were submitted to the relevant committee following its call for applications.

Among these, 512 were from additional secretaries. However, only 51 of them were promoted from additional secretary to secretary.

Notably, 38 of these officials had never previously been denied promotion while becoming additional secretary.

Furthermore, retired additional secretaries said, there were instances where individuals received promotions without submitting applications and in many cases merit list was not duly followed in the promotion process.

The ‘deprived’ additional secretaries claim that they were repeatedly denied promotion during the tenure of the ousted Awami League government.

Now being denied promotion once again, they are facing an identity crisis. According to them, they are aware of the matter that all of them will not be promoted to secretaries. However, they seek this promotion for the sake of social dignity.

Deprived Retired Secretary Forum convener Md Nasir Uddin told reporters that they had informed the senior secretary of the public administration ministry that, considering financial constraints, they were not seeking any financial benefits.

Instead, they only sought a designation and recognition. For this reason, they were requesting promotion to the rank of the secretary.

In response, the senior secretary of the public administration ministry informed them that a summary on the matter (the promotions in retrospective already granted) had been sent to the chief adviser’s office for review.