The Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) has found Illegal money transactions amounting to Tk 50 thousand to Tk 30 million in the process of appointments, promotions and transfers or postings at the Forest Department.
TIB also underlined that the nearly century-old forest act-1927 was needed to be widely reformed as the existing law could not work as a safeguard to protect the country's forest land.
The anti-corruption watchdog came up with the development in its new study disclosed on Wednesday at a virtual press conference titled 'Forest Department: Challenges of good governance and way-out'.
The study read that the amount of illicit money transactions varied depending on the position of the working areas, especially to secure the opportunity to sell forest resources illegally and at relatively high value of the forest land.
The money transactions also varied depending on bargaining power and the ability to exert influence at a higher level, it added.
The corruption involved money from Tk 50 thousand to Tk 30 million for the positions ranging from a guard to the head of local, zonal, divisional offices or the forest headquarters, TIB found.
Corruption was also found in the Social Afforestation Programme. Some forest department officials were found to have carried out illegal financial activities, revealed the study.
Besides, money embezzlement cases were found as contractors allegedly withdrew the total work bills without even after partial completion of the project work. There are also allegations that some of the policy makers were involved in financing the forest projects.
Meanwhile, the 93-year-old forest act that is found to be insufficient to protect the forest land does not mention the definition of forest, type of forest, forest conservation process, and also does not mention the process of allocation of forest land for development work and necessary rules are also missing.
Besides, due to loopholes in the existing law there are opportunities to use the forest land in an ill manner, TIB reads.
Although there is an outline for establishing government control over forest land, there are no directives in the law about the process of restoring and reclaiming grabbed forest land, TIB added.
The neighbouring countries do have supplementary laws to fill the gaps in the forest law, but Bangladesh has not yet enacted any to protect its forest lands. Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act-2012 also does not specify what will be done to restore and protect the endangered wildlife
Saw-Mill (License) Rules-2012 also gives an opportunity to set up and operate a saw-mill in a municipal area which poses a risk of theft of protected forest trees.
The annual target of revenue collection from the forest land is about Tk. 1 billion which is one of the major obstacles to forest protection as it creates opportunities and risks of uncontrolled corruption, including destroying the government forest land, the study read.
There are allegations that some forest officials are involved in corruption in the name of revenue collection, such as deforestation, social forestry, rubber plantations, eco-tourism, leasing, land leases, timber sales, and so on.
Meanwhile, there is a serious lack of infrastructure and logistics support in the institutional capacity of the Forest Department.
Although a total of 0.28453 million acres of forest land had been grabbed until December 2019, the forest department had been able to recover only 3.0 per cent of the total forcibly-occupied forest land in the last five years.
TIB recommended that the forest act be reformed, and the revenue collection from the forest sector be stopped immediately.
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