The Mayor of Dhaka City Corporation. Mirza Abbas, has instructed the concerned authorities to repair all city roads by December 15. We welcome this very decisive directive by the Mayor. We also commend him for putting a deadline for the completion of the work. Following every. rainy season the city roads become literally unusable. The incessant rain coupled with the heavy pressure of vehicular traffic destroy the road surface, most of which develop huge pot-holes and broken surface. By the time the rains end, we are generally back to square one. The City Corporation each year has to .spend large amount of money to get the roads back to the normal state.

The Mayor raised a very pertinent issue when he warned the engineers and area officials of being responsible if the repaired roads do not last, at least, for a period of five years. Literally crores of Taka are wasted every year on road repair, whereas quality work should last us for at least the period mentioned by the Mayor. So the question is what ails our road repair work, that does not make it last the expected period? There is an obvious hint — not very subtle — of corruption in the Mayor's warning. The question we want to raise is, if there is corruption, then will it disappear, or even reduce, just by a mere warning? We are fully aware of the extent and spread of corruption in many of our institutions. We are also aware that the corrupt practices have developed their own vested group, support mechanism and a beneficiary chain willing to go to any length to maintain its grip on the way things are done now.

Therefore, while we support our Mayor for his initiative, we urge him to move in a more serious and organised manner against the corrupt elements in the DCC. If roads are to be repaired with quality material and in a way that will ensure their durability, then the whole process - from selecting contractors, purchasing material and supervising the work done — will have to be thoroughly examined.

Perhaps the Mayor may not be in a position to open the pandora's box as a whole but, without making some sort of reform, he will not get the type of result he is hoping for.