Cost Of Hiding The True Cost

Funds allocated to flood-hit roads.
True cost of damage often remains untold.
Stealing public fund gains acceptance in society.
Independent body can reveal project's nitty-gritty.

A news report says government allocated Tk 59.06 billion to 390 upazillas, administrative units bigger than village, in a bid to repair damaged roads, bridges and embankment. Frequent flooding, torrential rain and cyclone Amphan inflicted serious damages to rural infrastructure. The allocation will address the losses resulting from calamities and bring back them to operational level, as anticipated by the policy makers. Post-disaster period sees this kind of damage-repairing investments. We are accustomed to it. Will that money be spent properly and to the projects for which the money is assigned? Past experience does not leave reason to be optimistic. Free season of corruption is going on.

In the first week of November, Transparency International Bangladesh in one of its reports found that 54% of the funds allocated to 7 climate change related projects were misappropriated. Management of the projects based on political consideration, swindling of money, nepotism and deception are common characteristics of the doomed projects. Governance has not improved at a remarkable level that assures one that similar fate does not await the road-repair projects.

Another thing to take note is how the assessment of the damage was done. If news report was the source of the damaged figure then how did the cost of the damage apprise? Often the houses do not have means to verify the claims of the damage independently. If the government officials did the damage assessment then inflating the damage figure went along well with their interests. It ensures relatively bigger share of the pie for the cohorts. Government has a monitoring and evaluation department. But rarely it appears with embarrassing findings and shares it with the press. Private NGO like TIB takes the onus of revealing the uncomfortable findings of public office.

It is obvious that there is no transparent and trustworthy mechanism within the government that spills the beans of impartial investigation / evaluation.Lack of political will also remains a source of worry and pain. Entrenched political atmosphere made even that prospects grimmer.

Back in 2009-10, Annual Development Expenditures (ADP) on transport and communication were Tk 22.42 billion and Tk 2.71 billion respectively. The expenditures stood at Tk 216.57 billion and Tk 22.69 billion respectively in 2016-17. (Source: BER 20 The figures capture commitment of the government to these two sectors. Spending increased couple of times more than what it was in 2009-10. It is important to note that many development partners also invested in these two sectors and credit they gave also reflected in ADP(revised). Government is merely an implementing / supervising body of the projects here. People of the country have to repay the loans and interests irrespective of quality of the projects. Now here comes the million dollar question: did the people get desired utility from the spending on transport and communication sector?

Ease of travel, hassle-free travel sound like bygone era talks to regular travelers. Safety is not ensured as more and more precious lives perish on roads every day. Consumers and producers of vital goods and services do not get benefit from linking of growth centers and consumption centers. Natural calamities, river erosion could be mentioned as reasons for damages to roads and communication infrastructure. But it does not necessarily mean that our roads will become useless in such a short span of time. Flash flood does not mean to wash away a road.

Quality of projects and reporting of the true cost/ damage have remained serious concern to those who feel pretty bad about waste of tax payers' money. It has been taken as granted that the public fund is meant to be stolen. So the cost of a project or damage to an infrastructure remains buried deep down the list of priority.

At a time when the media is coerced and cornered, no one bothers about a report on washed away embankment cost an astonishing sum. While hard working and true Tax and VAT payers pay the price of such corrupted projects out of their own pockets, precedents of future corruption are set.

In a country where corruption is rampant and society tolerates stealing of public fund , creation of a strong evaluation and reporting body of public fund financed projects is call of the hour.

In Bangladesh we see some state organs are accountable, but some remains immune from any kind of accountability. Let's elaborate the point with an hypothetical example. Think of an office with many departments that are accountable to management except one department.

Corrupt officials of that department will use the leverage to spread corruption within the department and to other departments. They will find kindred spirits in other departments and in connivance with them they will start to swell cosmetically the spending of the departments. At the end of the day, cost of no accountability in one department increases spending of the company many times and fills the coffer of the corrupts. This is not desirable at all.

In Bangladesh, we have a tendency to copycat anything from the West. Unfortunately, we do not take cue from the West the shining examples of governance and accountability. Unchecked project implementation is tantamount to waste public money and a great disservice to the taxpayers.