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Water Projects

Govt officials blamed for 85pc corruption

Staff Correspondent
Government officials were responsible for 84.8 percent corruption in the country’s water sector while politicians and contractors the rest, says the Global Corruption Report 2008 by Transparency International (TI).
The officials flouted tender rules at will and were involved in corruption in major development projects like irrigation, river dredging and flood prevention.
Negligence of duty tops the acts of corruption (33.3 percent) fol lowed by asset-stripping (27.3 percent) and abuse of power (21.2 percent), according to the report released across the world yesterday.
Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) unveiled the report at a press conference at Cirdap auditorium. The part on Bangladesh is based on analysis of corruption reported in the print media throughout 2006.
The theme of this year's global report is corruption in the water sector.
Observing that graft in the
sector puts lives and livelihoods of billions of people at risk, the global report says nearly 1.2 billion people She jOy .Star
in the world do not have guaranteed access to water and more than 2.6 billion are without adequate sanitation.
Due to overuse and pollution, water-based ecosystems are considered the world's most degraded natural resource, it notes, adding that water scarcity already affects local regions on every continent, and by 2025 more than 3 billion people could be living in water-stressed countries.
In developing countries, about 80 percent of health problems can be linked to inadequate water and sanitation that claim lives of nearly 1.8 million children every year and lead to loss of an estimated 443 million school days for the kids suffering from water-related ailments.
Talking about the nature of corruption in Bangladesh, Prof Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of TIB board of trustees, told The Daily Star, "Laxity of Wasa, Rajuk, Dhaka City Corporation and other development authorities concerned in dredging rivers and canals, repairing a road, installing sewage pipes etc remains the key contributor to corruption."
Asset-stripping, which is second largest corruption, includes illegal grabbing of rivers and land and not using as much boulders or sand needed for dams, he added.
With abuse of power being the third biggest corruption, the graft chart has bribery and fraud (6.1 percent each) and extortion (3 percent) as other contributors.
"Another category of corruption in urban areas involves encroachment of the lakes and rivers flowing through cities especially Dhaka," the report reads.
Illegal occupation of the shoreline in Dhaka's Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara Lake threatens the lake's very existence.
In one case of derequisition, 31 acres along the lake were due to be
reclaimed from grabbers. But individuals with political links easily took out court injunctions against the reclamation, the report notes.
"With connivance of the government officials, a syndicate of land grabbers has long been active in the business of securing prime sites in the city by filling lakeshore with earth and building structures overnight."
Officials in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) are often found to be working in tandem with grabbers and it is the main failure to demarcate, develop and conserve water bodies crucial for Dhaka's environment, water supply and drainage, theTl report said.
Citing lack of coordination in plans of different government agencies, Prof Muzaffer said, "Their planning is not proper. Urbanisation according to Rajuk s plan and hill cutting in Chittagong have destroyed canals and led to water-logging."
"See what's going on over the Begunbari-Hatirjheel canal. The role that influential BGMEA is playing there too is a corruption,” headded.
Inefficiency was responsible for about 30-50 percent wastage of funds in different water projects.
Talking about solutions to water crisis, he said, "We have to consider alternatives in terms of ecological aspects.”
He suggested installation of plants for waste water recycling, desalinisation, and rain water harvesting.
To ensure proper share of water from the trans-boundary rivers, Prof Muzaffer suggested signing of a multinational deal by Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh.