Transport boss high on mega projects, low on road repair
As the country’s road network teeters on the brink of collapse, the communications minister stays preoccupied with ambitious projects like elevated expressway and Padma bridge.
Almost nothing has been done in the last two and a half years to repair the roads and highways.
Due to lack of repair and routine maintenance, highways and intra-district roads have developed numerous potholes, pushing up the frequency of accidents, vehicle maintenance cost and travel time.
The condition has worsened so much that transport owners have suspended bus operations on Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail highways.
The bus operators have warned that if the highways are not repaired immediately, they would halt their services on some other routes.
While the crisis has been a long time coming, Syed Abul Hossain, the communications minister, seems to have been in a blissful ignorance. He is more interested in $2.9 billion Padma bridge, nearly $2 billion Dhaka Elevated Expressway and the like, his colleagues say.
A number of ministers and lawmakers, the parliamentary standing committee on his ministry and transport owners have repeatedly urged Abul Hossain to fix the battered communications, but to no avail.
“Such miserable state of roads and highways is not expected. We just cannot deny people are suffering a lot,” Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury told The Daily Star on Saturday night.
Matia and many other government stalwarts including Speaker Abdul Hamid, LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam and prime minister’s adviser Alauddin Ahmed have to use Dhaka-Mymensingh highway to visit their constituencies. They have every reason to be annoyed with Abul Hossain.
Some other cabinet members including Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque on several occasions have criticised the communications minister over the road conditions, sources said.
“He [Abul] is busy with his power exercise and construction business,” said a minister, preferring anonymity.
Abul Hossain has taken a lot of flak also from the central leaders in meetings of the ruling Awami League, which in the 2008 election manifesto said measurers would be taken to construct new roads and develop the existing highways for better communications.
Talking to The Daily Star, AL Presidium Member Obaidul Quader said the party had made a number of rhetoric promises. “We should have given only the pledges we can keep.”
He hoped repair of roads and highways would start right after this rainy season.
The parliamentary standing committee on the communications ministry has repeatedly asked Abul Hossain to fix the infrastructure, but he paid no heed.
“With a minister like Abul Hossain, development of roads and highways is impossible. He only talks sweet but does nothing,” Omor Faruk Chowdhury, a member of the committee, told The Daily Star.
The minister has a share in the money misappropriated by the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) officials, he alleged. “Why will he [Abul] take steps to improve the state of communications when he is getting hefty sums as bribe?”
The RHD is a den of corruption. That almost every executive engineer owns a house in Dhaka city says a lot about the extent of graft there, he observed.
The minister appointed “highly corrupt” Shahab Uddin as the chief engineer of the RHD despite strong objection from the parliamentary committee, alleged Omor Faruk, an AL lawmaker from Rajshahi.
“Where has all the money allocated for roads and highways gone? The funds have been looted by the Roads and Highway Department officials,” he said.
Omor Faruk is not the only one feeling that way.
In February 2011, many grand alliance lawmakers came down heavily on Abul Hossain for the poor performance of his ministry. The minister at that time was spared further slamming as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina intervened.
A BIG WORRY FOR OWNERS
Transport owners claim their maintenance costs for all modes of vehicles have shot up by at least 10 percent due to damaged roads. Prices of spare parts are also out of control.
They want a solution before people start leaving the capital for home ahead of the Eid ul-Fitr.
The longevity of vehicles is going down sharply and accidents are increasing, said Mohammad Abul Kalam, president of city’s Mohakhali Bus Terminal Road Transport Owners Association.
They are deeply concerned about their business, he told The Daily Star.
ABOUT FUNDS
The government upon request from the communications ministry approved a Tk 1,410 crore project last year for immediate repair of 4,554-kilometre badly damaged roads.
Abul Hossain, however, said “We needed Tk 1,410 crore for repair and maintenance. But we have been given only Tk 107 crore in two years. So, how can we do the urgent work in time?”
He has requested the finance minister for immediate release of the funds, added the minister.
Asked, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said he has received a letter from the communications minister and the allocations have already been released.
A government source said the finance ministry is reluctant to disburse additional funds for road repair and maintenance, fearing misappropriation of the money like several times in the past.
RHD sources said most of the last year’s budgetary allocation had been embezzled by the engineers and contractors. “What is happening in the name of repair and maintenance is nothing but eyewash. Maintenance budget is the easiest way to make money,” said an RHD official.
Talking to The Daily Star on Thursday at his secretariat office, Abul Hossain said the highways would be temporarily repaired by filling the large potholes ahead of Eid ul-Fitr so that there is uninterrupted road communications.
About criticisms against him, he said, “I have done so much good work in the last two and a half years. But that seems to have no value whatsoever.
“The next government will reap the benefits of what I am doing now.”
The minister blasted the past BNP-Jamaat and caretaker administrations for not carrying out any major repair or maintenance during their time.
He has submitted a proposal to the prime minister, seeking an immediate allocation of Tk 2,803 crore for repair and maintenance of roads and highways across the country.
Sheikh Hasina will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow with the ministers concerned at her office to discuss the matter.
“POORLY CONSTRUCTED”
Experts say there is no immediate solution to the crisis as the foundations of all highways and major roads are faulty.
“The highways must be maintained all the time,” Prof Shamsul Hoque of civil engineering department at Buet said, “and throwaway excuses like lack of fund are not acceptable.”
All the highways in the country are very poorly constructed and this is why they have become unusable, he said.
Referring to the approach roads to Bangabandhu Bridge in Tangail and Sirajganj, Shamsul Hoque said the roads have no potholes even after more than 15 years, as there was no fault in their construction.
Prof Hoque said developing a proper drainage system should be a priority while constructing a road. No roads will sustain for more than one or two year if they get waterlogged.
He stressed the need for constant surveillance on the engineers who would construct the new roads and highways.
PAST EXPERIENCE
Anwar Hossain Manju, the communications minister of the Awami League government in 1996-2001, told The Daily Star how he used to discharge his duties.
“During my tenure there was constant surveillance on the engineers. But it is totally absent right now,” said Manju, chairman of Jatiya Party (JP).
“Whenever I faced a problem, I rushed to the prime minister and sought her advice,” he said, adding that such coordination between the prime minister and the ministers is absent right now.
The former communications minister believes that absence of sincerity, not the lack of funds, is the main obstacle.
Some highly placed sources in the government said Abul Hossain communicates with the premier only for the mega projects like construction of Padma Bridge, Elevated Expressway, and Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Mymensingh four lanes.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
