Shawdesh desk:

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said the aim of her government is to build a fully service-oriented administration to ensure the welfare of people.

“Our aim is to build an administration that will serve people and ensure its accountability to people,” she said at a function marking the signing of the Annual Performance Agreement (APA) of ministries and their subordinate bodies.

The programme was arranged at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium with the PM joining it from her official residence Ganabhaban.

Mentioning that remaining in power does not mean enjoying government facilities, Hasina said, “We’ve our responsibilities to the people. Our responsibilities are to ensure the welfare of people and their interests and change their fate,” she said.

At this time of the Covid-19 pandemic, she said, the government aims to make sure that mass people must not face suffering in any way. So, the government has fulfilled their demand for food and is providing medical facilities and assisting them economically to get rid of the curse of pandemic,” she said.

She mentioned that the government from the beginning of the pandemic started giving stimulus packages and announced 28 packages worth Tk 131,641 crore and implemented those.

The Prime Minister thanked all for their sincere efforts which resulted in keeping the national economy moving since March 2020.

As coronavirus is a global problem, Bangladesh alone has nothing to do, she said, adding:  “We’re trying to contain the transmission of the virus, protect the lives and livelihoods of people keeping the socioeconomic condition moving.”

She also said the government wants to make sure that its efforts to change the fate of people should not stop in any way. “Coronavirus virus put the whole world into a deep crisis. This type of crisis was never seen in the past. It has hit socioeconomic development hardest unlike any time before. But the painful fact is that the government was moving the country towards development before the pandemic that suffered a huge shock.”

The Prime Minister thanked the administration, law enforcement agencies and armed forces for their courageous role. “They worked in a very abnormal situation. Or else, the situation could have been much worse.”

Regarding vaccination, the Prime Minister said her government has long been working tirelessly to ensure it free for all. “We’ve taken the move so that all could get vaccines gradually, we’ve started giving vaccines; it’s coming. We’ll procure all vaccines that will be needed for the people of the country.  We want no one to be left out from the vaccination,” she said.

State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam, Finance Division’s Senior Secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder and ICT Division Secretary NM Zeaul Alam also spoke at the programme.

The senior secretaries and secretaries in charge of various ministries and divisions handed over a copy of their respective Annual Performance Agreement to the prime minister.

The cabinet secretary, on behalf of the prime minister, signed the APA.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq received the APA on behalf of the prime minister.

Under the agreement, the ministries will set their visions, missions and strategic goals in line with the development priorities of the government, take short- and long-term plans as per budgetary allocations.

The government introduced the method of the APA in the 2014-2015 fiscal year for the public sector to ensure institutional transparency, accountability, proper utilisation of resources and, above all, enhancing the institutional efficiencies.

The main purposes of introducing APA are moving the focus of the ministry from process-orientation to result-orientation, and providing an objective and fair basis to evaluate the overall performance of the ministries and divisions at the end of the year.

The APA is an internal mechanism of the civil administration from top to the grassroots level to ensure accountability of the government officials aimed at evaluating their yearly performances and making them accountable to their responsibilities.

The government has signed the APA with the ministries and their subordinate bodies which also included divisional, district and upazila-level offices of the government.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq, on behalf of the Prime Minister, handed over the APA and national integrity service awards among 10 winners.