ID Cards Must Be Displayed at All Times at the Secretariat; Visitor Entry Also Tightened

To strengthen security at the Secretariat, the government has directed officers and employees to keep their identity cards (ID cards) visible at all times. At the same time, several restrictions have been imposed on the entry of visitors.

The instruction was issued on Tuesday (3 November) in a memorandum signed by Kazi Arifur Rahman, deputy secretary of the Secretariat Security Branch of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The memorandum said that, alongside permanent and temporary visitors, people coming to attend meetings and various visitors enter the Secretariat through one-time passwords (OTP). As the prime minister now works from the Secretariat every day, ensuring internal security has become essential. For that reason, it said, officers and employees need to keep their identity cards visible.

In this situation, ministries and divisions have been requested to instruct all officers and employees to display their ID cards in a visible place at all times while entering and staying at the Secretariat.

Earlier, on 27 October, several more instructions were issued to control visitor entry to the Secretariat. Those instructions spoke of controlling entry in the interest of ensuring security and monitoring visitors’ activities.

Under those instructions, on Mondays and Thursdays, the days when visitor entry is closed, the number of meetings with offices outside the Secretariat must be kept as low as possible.

In addition, the visitor entry time has been set at 2pm instead of 12 noon. Instructions have been given to issue OTPs accordingly. It has also been said that ordinary visitors should not be given more than one OTP a week.

Alongside this, OTPs in the names of officers who are on leave are to be stopped during their leave. The instructions said these steps have been taken to strengthen security at the Secretariat, control visitor entry and maintain overall discipline.