Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) sent a 21-point recommendation to Cabinet Division on Sunday for taking effective steps to check corruption at Roads and Highways Department (RHD).
The set of recommendations was prepared by an administrative team of the national anti-graft agency to find out the root causes and modes of graft at RHD.
The recommendation report, signed by ACC secretary Dr Shamsul Arefin, was also sent to Road Transport and Highways Division on the backdrop of recent allegations of corruption and irregularities in road construction.
ACC identified use of lower grade materials in road construction, syndication in contractor selection, influence of powerful quarters in tender, leak in project estimation before tender, frequent change in project design, excessive cost estimation, forging fake bills in the name of repair, and unethical relation among contractors, relevant engineers and consultancy firms as the major areas of corruption in the report.
Among the observations by the ACC administrative team on corruption at RHD are - using lower-grade cobble or brick chunk, sand, and bitumen is the major source of corruption in road construction.
Despite tender specification to use grade-1 bricks to have aggregate crushing value (ACV) properly, substandard brick chunks is used in many cases following pressure from powerful contractors and negligence in duty by engineers with the intention of embezzling project fund.
Another crucial ingredient of road construction is bitumen, which is used to coat the roads, but in many cases, contractors use low amount of the material that hampers longevity of the roads.
The ACC team suggested filing graft cases against the government engineers and construction companies concerned, if ACV and bitumen quality is not correct in lab report, according to tender specification.
Construction of concrete roads was suggested by ACC to get rid of decay due to natural disasters like flood and heavy rain.
The administrative team also recommended not to implement development projects by superintending engineers or additional chief engineers of RHD, as they are also responsible for supervising and monitoring of projects.
The superintending engineers or additional chief engineers can ensure accountability and transparency of projects by supervising and monitoring the projects, implemented by district-level executive engineers.
To prevent corruption in earth filling portion of a project, regular site visiting, auditing and reporting are required, according to the report.
Excluding special government order, all the state procurement should be done through e-Government Procurement (e-GP), and the process needs to be monitored by Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU).
A project should be completed in time to stop the trend of project time extension that mounts project cost abnormally comparing to its prior estimation.
Technically expert professionals and representatives from different engineering universities should be included in a project to evaluate its estimation as well as technical and financial offer of tender.
Project estimation and project implementation should be done by two separate units, while quality of work needs to be scrutinised through initiating performance audit system.
It should be made a legal obligation for construction firms to implement, construct and repair a project for certain period of time. Besides, after a certain period, repair work should be done through open tender.
Recommending full implementation of e-GP tender system at RHD, ACC also called the government department to publish a full list of registered contractors on the website.
Public hearing and social audit should be arranged to ensure transparency and accountability in procurement, construction, repair and renovation processes of a project.
A final measurement of a project should be done by an outsourced firm or a team from an engineering university, while the unit responsible for project estimation should not be engaged in project implementation.
The commission also recommended strict control of overloading on highways according to 'Vehicle Excel Load Control Center Management Policy 2012' for ensuring durability of the roads.
Terming procurement of vehicles for project another major source of corruption, ACC called for assessing logicality of vehicle purchase.
Example of taking stern action against firms - for negligence in construction work and disobeying of regulations - should be set, so that others fear. The administrative team of ACC also suggested digitisation and installation of modern equipments in toll collection system to prevent potential corruption.
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