One way or the other the lawmakers are having good times as far as the flow of 'development' funds to their respective constituencies is concerned.
The ministry of local government, cooperatives and rural development appears to be quite generous in making available 'development' funds to the lawmakers through projects needing approval of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) and beyond those.
The ECNEC Tuesday last approved the Tk. 60.76 billion project, titled, 'Important Rural Infrastructure Development on a Priority Basis (pahse-2). Lawmakers barring the ones elected from reserved seats and constituencies within areas of different city corporations would soon get Tk.200 million each for implementing road and market development projects.
Each of the lawmakers has already received Tk.150 million under the first phase of the identical project. The first phase of the project, having an expenditure target of about Tk49 billion, is scheduled to be completed by December next. This is also an ECNEC-approved project.
The lawmakers and other influential individuals, belonging to the ruling party, have chosen yet another route to secure 'development' funds for their respective upazilas under projects that are not required to go through the rigours associated with the ECNEC's approval.
What seem to be important in getting such projects approved are cooperation and support from the LGD and local government engineering department (LGED) and good rapport with the ministry of planning.
Such rural development projects, having worth below Tk.250 million each, are not sent to the ECNEC for approval and the ministry of planning is authorised to approve the same.
Some lawmakers and powerful ruling quarters, reportedly taking advantage of relaxed approval process, are, according to the FE report, now trying to influence the LGD and the LGED to send projects of their choice to the Planning Commission (PC) to secure approval from the ministry of planning. The PC has already received a good number of this kind of rural infrastructure development projects from the LGED.
It is not known whether the ministry of planning has approved any such project or not. If it has approved even one case, surely, there would be a rush of identical projects seeking its approval. In fact many lawmakers are in a queue to send projects worth below Tk.250 million since a few of the kind has been sent by the LGED to the PC.
Neither the LGD nor the PC is particularly happy with this type of projects that have been flowing in, under political consideration.
The trend would further undermine the discipline relating to development spending. At one point of time, such an unhealthy development might go beyond the control of the government even.
There are sufficient reasons to express doubt about the quality of spending on the ECNEC-approved rural infrastructure development projects. A substantial part of allocations made against such projects, as the allegations run or it is widely believed -- on real or perceived grounds, are misappropriated by the local level officials and lawmakers' men.
In fact, rural development projects, various schemes under food for works programme etc., traditionally have been the safe and widely-used conduits for distributing financial favours among the workers and supporters of the party/parties in power at the grassroots. The net output of the so-called rural infrastructure projects has been, thus, highly insignificant.
Besides, when the government is having difficulties in allocating sufficient funds for the large and important development projects, it is not at all prudent to waste funds worth over Tk.110 billion on projects the implementation of which is usually marked by serious irregularities.
The government policymakers, prior to making allocations to the MPs under the just-approved project, should ask the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) to conduct spot investigations into a few projects being implemented under the first phase of the project and find out the truth.
Country's development administration could never perform up to the desired level. Slow pace of project implementation, misappropriation of resources, lack of transparency and accountability etc., have been its hallmarks. All these have led to the accumulation of soft project assistance worth billions of dollar in the pipeline.
The popular perception about the public sector development activities is not that palatable. It is widely believed, again on real or perceived grounds, nearly half of the money allocated against road and other rural infrastructure project is misappropriated at different levels. The situation, they feel, is slightly better in the case of large projects. But frequent hike in the cost of such projects has turned out to be another big problem.
With qualitative improvement in development administration, the country could have invested more public funds in development activities and created more employment opportunities. Unfortunately, no meaningful efforts, as of now, are in sight to make that happen.
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