Dhaka: With the signing of Annual Performance Agreement (APA) with ten ministries on Monday the government embarked on innovative process of evaluating yearly performance of the civil servants and making them accountable to their responsibilities.

Under the agreement the ministries would ascertain vision, mission and strategic goals in consistence with the development priorities of the government, long term perspective plan, five years plan and allocation and business and budgetary allocation of the ministry.

Cabinet Secretary and secretaries of ten ministries signed the agreements in presence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during weekly cabinet meeting at Bangladesh Secretariat in Dhaka.

Cabinet secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan while briefing after the meeting said with the agreement, the ten ministries have come to the agreement with the Cabinet Division for evaluating the performance of the officials under Government Performance Management System (GPMS).

“It’s an internal mechanism of the civil administration to ensure accountability of the government officials and measuring their annual performance,” cabinet secretary said adding the APA contains required guideline for measuring the performance of the officials.

Musharraf Hossain said a core committee headed the secretary (coordination and reforms) prepared the guideline of the GPMS through reviewing the civil servants’ performance evaluation procedure in India, Bhutan, Kenya, Malaysia and South Africa.

The signing ministries/divisions are Road Transport and Highway Division, Home Ministry, Textiles and Jute Ministry, Energy and Mineral Resources Division, Industries Ministry, Commerce Ministry, Housing and Public Works Ministry, Bridge Division, Social Welfare Ministry and Economic Relations Division.