Road Maintenance
Graft gobbles up funds
Misappropriation of funds meant for repair and maintenance of highways is particularly blamed for the sorry state of roads and highways.
A section of engineers and contractors of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) pocket the lion’s share of the money allocated every year for the job, insiders say.
In papers, though, the money is shown spent.
In the last two years, the government allocated Tk 1,457 crore for repair and maintenance of highways.
The RHD claims to have developed and repaired 3,600km of road in 2009-10 and 4,644km in 2010-11, but reality contradicts the claim.
“What is being done in the name of repair and maintenance is nothing but eyewash,” an RHD official tells The Daily Star.
“We don’t find any sign of using the money when the condition of highways continues to get worse,” the official added preferring anonymity.
Thanks to widespread corruption by the RHD officials, donor agencies, including the World Bank, are refusing to finance any RHD project or work with its officials.
In 2009, the WB withdrew itself from a project under which the Dhaka-Mymensingh, Sylhet-Sunamganj and Comilla-Brahmanbaria roads were supposed to be repaired. The three highways are now in their worst condition.
“We don’t feel safe to work with the RHD anymore,” a communications ministry official quoted a donor agency representative as saying.
The official added the Dhaka-Mymensingh four-lane project has been stalled due to irregularities in selecting firms.
The finance ministry is also reluctant to release fund for the RHD fearing corruption.
Currently, there is no donor-funded project in communications sector except three old projects of Asian Development Bank.
Donors have serious reservation to work with the RHD, as many of its self-proclaimed corrupt officials including Chief Engineer Shahab Uddin are still there.
Shahab Uddin is among 44 RHD officers who confessed to their corruption before the now-defunct Truth and Accountability Commission and got clemency by depositing a portion of their ill-gotten money.
Many of them later got promotion, and are now involved in corruption and irregularities.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
