Thank You For The Bakshish!

Road, tree and footpath are torn asunder,
Greed for public money is behind the development blunder.
Bidi smokers pay the bill for public work,
Poor ranking does not even cause reaction knee-jerk.

1.
2014. I was cosharing a CNG taxi (three wheeler) on my way to Mirpur-10. The taxi had to go through the restricted garrison area in the middle of Dhaka. I started the journey from a place called Sainik Club, near Banani-11. The road stretching from Kachukhet to Mirpur-10 was in a sorry state. At first glance,one might think someone had ploughed the road with a power tiller. The road was so bad that in that short spell of journey we were literally lobbed into the air and instantly landed on our seat. Usually, such short journey is never meant to start a conversation with a fellow passenger,a stranger. The stranger could not help spitting his venom: " You know this road is supposed to be fixed long ago. Every year they sanctioned money.These SOBs swindled the money submitting false papers. It happened six times! S-i-x times! Can you believe it?They just do nothing. This road is right in the heart of Dhaka. Can you believe it?" He lamented throughout the journey while we were inhaling fair amount of cream colored dust jumping up and down inside the CNG.

Later the road was fixed. And I traveled along the road couple of times. In recent years, the road had gone through several surgeries of government's development work. It healed. But paid a price. It lost its earlier charm: Devdaroos and other garden trees were cut to make room for development work.

Once a question about the poor condition of the roads was thrown at a responsible ruling party leader who now holds the portfolio of road and transport. His answer was remarkable. "Well you know our people have short memories. They quickly forget everything. These repairing works are shelved for election years. When they travel along the newly fixed road in that election year they will tell themselves how bad the road was! People remember good thing only for a while!"

2.
Transparency International once again degraded Bangladesh in its corruption perception index. For the year 2020, from least corrupt to most corrupt countries,Bangladesh is placed 146. Among the most corrupt countries, Bangladesh is ranked 12th. Previous year, Bangladesh was the 14th most corrupt country.

Some snapshots could aptly describe the deterioration of corruption situation in Bangladesh.

In the last financial year, government relaxed the rules for legalizing the black money. Nearly Tk 100 billion undocumented money were deposited in the banks. Couple of times more money maybe lying in the coffers of owners of clandestine wealth.

Social safety net programs designed to help the vulnerable section of the society have also fallen victim of corruption. According to a news report, 46% of the safety net benefits have gone to the wrong hands. Who does not comply for such programs is taking full advantage of it due to lack of transparency.

Even the Transparency International in one of its local study has found that more than 50% of the climate change fund allocated for some government projects are stolen. Target groups do not get any benefit from such allocation.

Appeal of such fund even invited thugs to misuse the fund. According to a news report, a thug swindled millions of Taka out of Kushtia villagers. He deceived them lending him the money in a bid to spend part of the "thousands of crore taka" his hoax NGO received from abroad.

But nothing matches the magnitude of irregularities in infrastructure projects.Swollen figure of Padma Bridge construction cost has become a matter of the past. Similar trend is being observed in other development projects.A news report revealed that Khulna-Mongla rail link project now costs Tk 47.98 billion. Ten years ago when it was conceived the initial project cost was Tk 17.2 billion. Chittagong-Gundum rail link project, costs Tk 180.43 billion, was delayed on several occasions. It was kicked off back in 2010. Significant delay ended up raising the costs manifold.

Corruption also crippled the financial sector. Central Bank, the very regulatory body to check the operations of financial institutions has not yet settled the issue of the pirated forex money. Some miscreants stole thousands of crore taka from leasing companies. Public banks and specialized banks are still reeling from scams.

COVID -19 laid bare the ongoing corruption in the health sector. A hoax screening program was run by a group of thugs. Inflated equipment costs and lack of transparency filled the pockets of non-technical staffs. This week a news report revealed how overpriced goods were purchased for Faridpur Medical College bypassing the public procurement regulations , resulting in corruption of Tk 100 million. Earlier similar corruption allegations in procurement had surfaced for Borishal Medical college and Suhrawardy Medical College. Police even detained political leaders for supplying overpriced and faulty N95 masks to PG Hospital.

The list is endless. Hardly any sector left where corruption has not unleashed its tentacles.

3.
The road I talked about earlier still goes through occasional digging and fixing in the winter. A new phenomenon is added : pedestrian's walkway also gets a new look every year. June and July mark the end and start of fiscal year in Bangladesh. So the last two quarters witness an unusual surge in spending the public fund allocated in the budget. As there is little transparency in spending the money, this kind of wasting and useless development work continues unabated just to make some vested quarter rich. Walkways in good condition,which could easily last for 4/5 years, pointlessly fall under the spade and excavator of money-thirsty contractors. It is indeed a mockery with the money of bidi ( cigarette for workers)smokers and laundry soap users who seldom use the walkways.

4.
Digitization is increasingly seen as a mean to inhibit corruption in public office. A joke popped up. Near future Bangladesh. A gentleman wants to avail the service of a public office. Like everyone else he maintains a prepaid account with the service provider.To his dismay, he notices that he has been charged Tk 100 more than the bill of the service.Flashing message on the smartphone screen reads: " Your bill is Tk X. Thank you for the bakshish of Tk 100. Have a nice day!"