RHD plays musical chairs as contractor calls the shot

A government agency has detected shoddy works and irregularities in a road construction project of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in north-eastern Bangladesh, officials said Saturday.
The agency has ordered an in-depth investigation and adequate supervision to ensure quality of the project works, they said.
A monitoring team of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of the Planning Commission detected massive irregularities in the ongoing 'Ujanchar-Bazitpur-Ostogram road development project' under the current Annual Development Programme (ADP). The cost of the project now stands at Tk 1.34 billion after a hike.
Under the project, the RHD is constructing 12.30 kilometres of submergible rigid pavements, 7.7 km flexible pavements, three bridges, 22 culverts and related works.
Project insiders said, the IMED team detected absence of any feasibility study and environmental impact assessment before undertaking the project.
When the team visited the project site, it detected marks of damage in some places of the newly-constructed pavements of the submergible road although the entire work is yet to be finished, sources said.
The team also found faults in some of the newly- constructed culverts on the road.
The monitoring report of the IMED said proper construction materials, as indicated in the design, were not used.
The IMED in its investigation found the RHD changed the Project Director (PD) five times, the Executive Engineer thrice and the Sub-Divisional Engineer twice during the four-year tenure of the project.
Adequate manpower has not also been employed to implement the project in time, the report said.
The IMED has recommended appointment of adequate manpower and proper supervision of the project works to ensure its quality implementation.
The monitoring team detected absence of coordination among the RHD, project people and the contractors.
According to the report, the contractor has not set up soft-solders in the guide-wall at both sides of the road as per the design of the project.
A senior Planning Commission official said what has been detected in the Ujanchar-Bazitpur project is usual in the case of many development projects in the country.
"In most cases, the project implementing agencies do not supervise the works properly and the contractors build establishments the way they like, violating design and conditions set in the approved DPP," he told the FE requesting anonymity.
Meanwhile, the project cost has already increased by 69 per cent to Tk 1.34 billion from the original estimation of Tk 793.1 million due to the delay in implementation.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) first approved the project at Tk 793.1 million in August 2011 for building the road by June 2013. But the RHD failed to do so resulting in the hike in project cost.
The ECNEC then revised the project in 2013 at Tk 1.34 billion for completing the entire works by 2015.
After repeated attempts, this reporter failed to contact the chief engineer of the RHD for his comment on irregularities in the project works.
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