A large portion of the credit for Bhutan’s press freedom ranking falling in recent years must be given to the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC).
Civil servants stopped talking to the media from 2022 when two foresters were terminated for speaking to the media and this was soon followed up by the RADA rules of RCSC which sowed even more confusion and fear among civil servants.
The RCSC is supposed to set positive examples but it itself is going backwards.
This paper on Wednesday sent an information request to the RCSC for data on the attrition rate of civil servants in 2024, data which RCSC has ready with it. The past Chairperson and Commission readily shared such information, but the current Chairperson and Commission declined to share such public information.
The reason given was that RCSC would publish the data in its own annual report and so it cannot share it with the media before that.
It seems in addition to not being transparent the RCSC has entered the rat race of many government agencies to compete with media houses to break their own news on their own platforms, a trend that emerged during the pandemic.
In past Royal Addresses His Majesty called for the civil service to stop working in small silos and have better coordination. His Majesty also called for the civil service to be more service oriented and accountable.
The RCSC’s drive to stop information being shared has gone so extreme that not only are media houses suffering but even agencies are careful to share information with each other, fearful of leaks, impacting coordination.
A major part of service delivery is sharing information, but if civil servants are afraid to share information then service delivery is hampered and moreover without information how do we really know how civil servants are performing, and so accountability goes out of the window.
His Majesty called for an ‘Enlightened and Entrepreneurial bureaucracy’ in the recent National Day address. However, a RCSC focused more on the means than the end and the process more than the ultimate result is ill suited in its current state to bring about either enlightenment or entrepreneurship.
Enlightenment needs a free flow of information and ideas and feedback, but RCSC is not prepared for that and Entrepreneurship needs innovation, practicality and quick thinking which is not possible under the current RCSC which relies more on fear and intimidation.
The RCSC needs to learn to not only follow the Constitution on provisions like Right to Information, but it must change its very institutional culture of secrecy and fear to bring about positive change.
“An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.”
Hafiz