To our dismay, many government-funded development initiatives are still far from providing the promised benefits to the public, though years have passed after their commencement. A back-page story in yesterday’s Daily Sun revealed such an infrastructure located at Sreemangal in Moulvibazar. Even four years after of its completion, the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) project still lacks industrial activity, despite its stated goals of increasing local employment and economic growth. Long-term neglect is causing several infrastructures in the industrial complex to deteriorate, endangering their upkeep and functionality. The plots have reportedly less demand since few big local traders live there. We wonder why the place was selected for the BSCIC project.
This is not a sporadic case, but rather unplanned development projects have hit headlines very often for waste of public money. A couple of weeks ago, a piece of news came out featuring how Tk490 million Balla Land Port project was approved without any feasibility study at the special interest of a former shipping secretary and how the pointless port having all modern infrastructural facilities is falling into desuetude in Chunarughat of Habiganj even after eight months of its completion for there is no road, let alone any customs station, across the border in Paharmura area of India’s Tripura state.
These are illustrations of the numerous government projects that have been hampered by poor planning and implementation. Such projects indeed corroborate how public money has been squandered and it is not rocket science that such projects are taken to provide some individuals an opportunity to make a quick buck.
It is unfortunate that so much of our public funds end up in the hands of dishonest people in a society like ours where people are fighting to make ends meet and the country needs loans from foreign organisations for executing different plans and programmes.
Had there been accountability, such projects that were bound to fail would not have been taken without required feasibility studies and thus a huge amount of public money would have been invested in pro-people projects or programme. These poorly thought out projects have been carried out by numerous government agencies but such actions ought to end. The planners of these projects must be held accountable.