Government in Bangladesh is in Disarray or Intended to Become Sustainable- A Quest for Confusions

Government in Bangladesh is in disarray or intended to become sustainable- A quest for confusions.

Prepared by

Md. Rezaul Karim, Assistant Professor, Southern University Bangladesh.

The ever conflict between truth and falsehood has been the source of all problems since the date of civilization. Even the current problem of Islam and non-Islamic philosophies are also the reasons for truth vs. falsehood.  General perception and practice is Government officials in Bangladesh do not live on their salaries and remunerations, rather on bribes and unethically earned money. Simple proof is that the Government officials in Bangladesh mostly own the properties and assets of the country. Among the Governmental departments Court, Ministries, Police are the most corrupted departments, not mentioning the Defense, as it would anti state or against the law to criticize the defense, although there is an audit department to oversee or check back the accounts, but general perception is ‘see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil’ – kind of measures are practiced.

The above prelude is said to explain the pretext of current Bangladeshi problem in the roads and highways ministry where the minister himself urge helps from the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) to oversee corruptions. TIB has no authority to investigate allegations of corruption in the communications ministry or any other government body; as it is generally understood. This unusual gesture came amid allegations of corruption in the bidding process of the $2.9-billion Padma Bridge project, which is also investigated in Canadian Court by the Canadian Government, and found wrongdoing after the World Bank (WB), the largest donor and coordinator of the project, has recently asked Canadian police to investigate a Montreal-based company for allegedly resorting to corruption to be selected as a consultant of the project.

This scandal and chaotic allegations are meddling and delaying the start of the construction of the 6.1 km long bridge. Government’s position is that the government would rather drop the companies’ accused of corruption from the bridge project than further delaying its construction. On the other hand as a person the Transport and road minister are dying to prove himself as ‘Mr. Clean’ amid what has been airing about, which is quite bizarre, to be noted that to check all the corruptions there is another neutral body called Anti Corruption Committee! Experts opine- TIB is unable to act on the ministry’s request legally and professionally, as it is an organization run by social scientists that does not have specialization in the act of investigation.  Moreover, TIB is not an institution to issue transparency certificate, rather it would be welcomed if the minister provides specific information to investigate corruption. Meanwhile, TIB is giving a second thought to the invitation, and can they do it if the matter involves criminal investigation? Critics ask, as we know so far the TIB can carry out investigative research at best. Yet however, TIB will get involved only after reaching a mutual understanding with the ministry on the terms and reference of its work- further TIB remarks.

Apparently the Government is in disarray regarding managing roads and highways and its transport and drivers. In recent days the newspapers are filled in with devastating accidents and killings of innocent people, due to either appalling road conditions or drivers’ qualifications. There are many other reasons but the root causes are these two villains. Regarding roads is it is not related with human like qualifications or judgment as it is an object the other is totally related to many correlated issues and measures should be taken so on so forth. In this regard, a meeting was held with related ministries, where the reporters and medias were invited to observe- apparently to show a clean slate state of mind of the ministries. This is somewhat supplementary to the above TIB incident. But before starting the discussion, all media and reporters were somewhat expelled from being attended. The incident raised eyebrows of all concerned, why reporters called in and refrained from attending. Conflict between transparent and non-transparent derived again.

Like the TIB, here again Bangladesh Driving Licensing authority seeking helps from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), which seeks to produce as many as 2,000 trainers who will be responsible for imparting training to would-be as well as veteran drivers. The express aim is to have a batch of skilled, professional and caring drivers. The government certainly needs to bury the bitter memory of its lack of sensitivity to road accidents and people’s sufferings owing to deplorable road conditions. Although belated, the ministers seem to have realized how they have let down the public and on realization of the fact they have decided to form a ‘road fund’ for repair and maintenance of roads. Further, the meeting arrived at a decision to constitute a taskforce with the responsibility of removing all unauthorized structures, Sunday markets and bazaars on roads and highways.

Now the interesting point people are asking what is the intention of Government, what is they are doing, efficiency potentialities, corruptions and intentions which is also at least remotely related to providing facilities to so called transit issues, and sustainability of Government till the next term election! As all believe Government’s objectives are not to serve but to sustain themselves.

Acknowledgement: Source of information Daily newspaper and Television.