Need to discipline BRTA

It's a bizarre case of irregularities. A section of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) officials and employees, as the reports in the media indicated, swindled a substantial amount of money on account of registration of cars and driving licences. Registration documents of over 23,450 car owners and drivers disappeared mysteriously from the custody of the BRTA offices in Narayanganj and Ekuria. Allegedly in collusion with a corrupt syndicate at Bangladesh Post Office who collected the vehicular fees and taxes through manual method, they grabbed the whole money for eight consecutive years. According to a report in a national daily this week, such corrupt practice began in 2001 and continued until 2008. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had taken up the case long ago. Two probe committees formed in this connection submitted their reports recommending actions against 10 guilty officials but the authorities are yet to take action. They are now asking for further investigation. The government incurred a loss of Tk 43.3 million as the registration money was not deposited to the national exchequer, not to speak of the untold sufferings that the affected car owners and drivers have been enduring. Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain said recently that everybody knew about the corruption in BRTA. Rampant corruption, irregularities and mismanagement in BRTA are depriving the government of a large sum of money as revenue from the transport sector. Outsourcing of services like fitness testing, registration and providing driving licence into a digital system could help rid it of corruption, the minister said. He referred to a recent incident where a BRTA official demanded Tk 40,000 as bribe from a former secretary of the communication ministry. Unbelievable though, it is true that 50 per cent of licences carried by drivers across the country are fake and prepared through irregularities and corruption. Not only the fraudsters, a section of BRTA staff and the Ministry of Communications are also providing drivers with fake licences. Members of law-enforcing agencies do not lag behind. A section of police personnel do also allegedly collect tolls from old and unfit vehicles regularly in exchange of letting those free. One fails to understand as to what is really happening inside the BRTA. Successive governments tried to rid this agency of many ills. None succeeded. It's just a den of corruption. Here, nearly 61 per cent of the driving licences were obtained without the drivers having to go through any kind of test. No less worrying is the news that 54 per cent of the drivers have licences the validity of which has expired. It is bribing that does the trick whenever the drivers fail to meet the legal requirements and the amounts of money that they have to pay varies according to the nature and extent of the violation of rules. Obviously, it is the people in general who have to bear the brunt of it all. There are thousands of vehicles in the streets which should have been scrapped long ago. Yet, the corrupt BRTA system keeps them going as fitness certificates can be obtained so easily. The result is pollution and a higher risk of accident. The ultimate situation of course becomes critical when these outdated vehicles are driven by drivers with fake or no licence. So, corruption at the BRTA is making the roads extremely unsafe and is also contributing to environmental pollution. Moreover, the owners of vehicles have to bribe the BRTA officials at almost every step while applying for route permits or any other necessary documents. The situation does not improve once the vehicles start moving on the roads. Now, it is the turn of the traffic police to make the most out of accidents or any violation of rules. Bribing appears to be the panacea for whatever problem the vehicles face while operating. Some time back, the government decided to outsource some of its services to the private sector to provide people with better services. The meeting, held to decide on the digitalisation of all services of the BRTA, formed a committee and tasked it with preparing a set of recommendations on the matter. The report was submitted but follow-up action was seen nowhere. Initially some automobile service companies were scheduled to be asked to provide fitness-testing certificate in favour of the government in exchange for a certain amount of money to ease people's sufferings. But that plan was lately abandoned. Some officials were also scheduled to visit Singapore to learn how the digital system is being run there in this sector. The government bought equipment worth of several millions of takas including computer accessories to launch the system. Ironically, those packs of equipment still remain unwrapped. And thus full digitalisation of the BRTA is still an elusive dream. However, the BRTA has launched partial online fees collection system in December last year. The authority claimed that after its introduction, misappropriation worth Tk 8.4 million per working day have been prevented and at least Tk 1,974 million saved in four months so far. It means Tk 8.4 million used to go down the drain in each of the 235 working days in a year before introduction of the online system. Enforcement of traffic rules and ensuring discipline on the roads will ever remain an elusive goal if the BRTA continues to perform dismally. What is needed at this hour is to get at the bottom of corruption and anomalies there with a view to making it a modernised and competent road transport management agency. - szkhan@dhaka.net