Having dismantled these institutions, and with no grand strategy for reforming the public sector, the incoming administration was becoming dependent on the same bureaucrats, most ex-military men, who had been around since the days of the old dictatorship. In several ministries, there was one new man, the minister, usually a septuagenarian NLD loyalist with no government experience, trying to preside over thousands of long-serving civil servants, adept at managing red tape, many with their hands deep in the till.
