Why the PM is forced to intervene in all tragedies?

The simple answer to my title is because our vital state organs and public institutions are malfunctioning. Bureaucrats, law makers to law enforcers are manifestly failing to deliver their respective services. Criminals have become over impudent in committing the heinous of crimes - people are ever more losing faith in our politicians and self-seeking consumerist filthy politics. Rule of law is absent almost everywhere. Taken as a whole, the country's wide-ranging issues has worsened to such degree that now the prime minister is required to intervene in all matters, especially in the most notorious and tragic ones.

I can put in place at least half a dozen sensational recent events to have occurred in the last couple of months , where the PM had to personally intervene for seeking a logical solution. Ranging from rape cases, mob beating, lynching, milk adulteration, misleading the public by spreading rumours to dengue fever prevention to stop the unlawful transfer of a civil servant for fining a renowned clothing brand-the PM's intervention appears to have become indispensable these days. If correctly guessed, she will have to once more intervene over our national Cricket team's lamentable performance in Sri Lanka since now we have become a team without a coach and a captain. 

Many, including her political opponents, will try to define her direct statements as a means to practice absolute power. But with or without supporting her and her political party, the truth however sad it may sound, the people in the higher echelons of power and bureaucracy do not any longer care about the public and the country. It was no less than a national shame for our city corporations over the unfair procuring practices of ineffective mosquito spray at the cost of huge sums causing deaths of many innocent citizens.   

However, according to the official norms of a parliamentary democracy,   the prime minister is responsible for all the decisions and policies of the government. He or she appoints government officials, such as members of the Cabinet. He or she serves as the head of the Cabinet and sits on several Cabinet committees. On top of it, the PM directs the functions of the government and supervises the implementation of Government Programmes. It is the PM who has the last say on crucial domestic and international affairs but in Bangladesh our PM is somewhat forced to get involved in far too many insignificant issues.

Fearfully enough, if this forced-to-intervene practice continues for too long, she will have far too many subjects to deal with, exhausting her valuable time and energy.
Humorous as it may appear, in the absence of a responsible political opposition in the parliament, from time to time, it is our PM who has been executing that duty. Last week one of my colleagues delivered a critical message by branding the High Court as the 'invisible opposition party' of Bangladesh. And in the midst of this countrywide organised chaos, we are unable to spot any collective determination by the people running the country to come out of it.  

Following each and every newer crisis, every now and then, I wonder how the PM manages the patience to address them individually. But she too, is aging like this writer with even a much faster pace.
Answer to the question-why our public officeholders have become so uncaring is a lengthy one but one sinister characteristic in their morale have come out - they have become too busy making money and abuse official power for their individualistic gains.     

Nevertheless, I don't want to get distracted from the point. The PM is painstakingly realising the rampant inefficiency and corrupt mindset of her bureaucrats, law makers to law enforcers almost every single minute. Based on my limited witnessing of corruptions and crimes in the past, they had a fixed pattern to make some individuals wealthy but now an entire syndicate is responsible for planning a daylight robbery while sharing the loot.

They not only commit crimes, loot our public banks or justify the act of lynching by diverting the normal course of law - they inspire others to become similar evils. The offenders can easily get away with horrible cold-blooded crimes since the chain of people involved protects the offender.

Despondently enough, it is on this point, where the PM has become markedly powerless. If our PM's appointed ministers and bureaucrats serving under her had performed with sincerity coupled with a sharp sense of patriotism-there was no need to bring every contentious issue to her attention.

From the outside, as powerful as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may appear, the very foundations of her sincere intents are now resting on irresponsible, corrupt , ineffective and precarious 'government pillars'. Abusing government power and protocol have skyrocketed to such alarming degree that ordinary people are being forced to pay that horrendous price with their lives. Every disaster occurs with a wakeup-call but our politicians and administrators have turned dismally resistant to both natural and manmade disasters and no wonder why the antibiotic resistance crisis is deepening in the country. The other two best examples are the city's ever worsening traffic jams and water-logging. The day seems not too far, when the PM may have to arrange special sessions at her office to teach our two city mayors and traffic high-ups on how to deal with these two growing dilemmas.

These days, I have become jaded with newer appalling crimes and corruption to such extent, at times, I don't feel like serving the media any longer, but I am a journalist at the end of the day. 

The bottom-line: Please do not compel the PM to intervene in all matters, let her do her job while you do yours. Repercussions of getting engaged in every domestic tragedy and failure may well compel her to follow the cruel path of Machiavelli's despot ruler. That is the last thing we want to see happen.

The writer is Assistant Editor, News & Editorial, The Daily Observer