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Barriers to growth

JICA chief also talks to The Daily Star on local government issues

Sajjadur Rahman
****The JICA country chief was so sad to see the inefficient bureaucracy that is foiling the country’s development potential.
“They (bureaucrats) are like feudal lords, though they are supposed to be the servants of the state,” he said***
Regulatory and bureaucratic bottlenecks still choke Bangladesh. Insecurities with energy and politics act as additional preventing factors for foreigners to come in.
“I assume regulatory issues cause great sufferings to Japanese investors here,” said Toda Takao, chief of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Bangladesh, in an interview with The Daily Star recently.
Many Japanese have returned home after experiencing these problems, he said.
Similarly, the JICA country chief complained of an inefficient bureaucracy that is foiling the country's development potential.
“They (bureaucrats) are like feudal lords, though they are supposed to be the servants of the state,” said Takao.
The JICA country chief also talked on other issues ranging from infrastructure constraints to governance, traffic jam, overlaps in development works, and bilateral relationship. But most of his interview was focused on local government system and decentralisation, which according to him, can reach public services to the doorstep of people.
“A lot of positive things are also happening here including setting priorities,” he said, referring to the government efforts to strengthen local government systems and develop the health care sector across the country.
Japan has been an important bilateral development partner of Bangladesh for years. The recent annual bilateral flow of Japanese official development assistance (ODA) to Bangladesh has reached more than $400 million. According to the JICA chief, the ODA might reach $500 million in the near future.
He also shared a number of shadow aspects of his country's cooperation with Bangladesh.
Currently, the economic giant is helping Bangladesh implement some mega projects including Padma Bridge, Dhaka MRT (mass rapid transit) and Bheramara power plant. Japan also assists Bangladesh through direct mobilisation of its expertise in implementing different projects.
“But the most outstanding activities by Japanese experts are in rural development or local governance,” said Takao. "It has started more than 20
years ago by the joint work of Japanese academia and aid practitioners who were enthusiastic about creating pragmatically sustainable model of rural development.”
He cited example of Participatory Rural Development Project (PRDP) that has been implemented to consolidate this idea at 20 unions in three upazilas. PRDP has linked people with the government and other stakeholders as well, he pointed out.
Efficiency in service delivery has increased by up to 800 percent and satisfaction by 120 percent with the PRDP model, said the JICA country chief. He said public service should go to the people without which Bangladesh cannot come out of poverty.
The model, according to him, would build up trust and relationship between the people and the government.
Takao also talked on his country's
experience and how it has developed amid a lot of struggles. "What we've done until 1970 was absolute failure,” he said.
“Success came after 1973 when we tried to reinforce local government in a bid to protect environment,” said Takao.
He also hailed the present government for its increasing efforts to 'connecting policy to people'. Takao also said much of their money has been misused. But now the situation is improving, he added.
The JICA country chief said more and more funds including foreign money would come to the local entities in Bangladesh in the years to come. But he doubts implementation.
“Our resources are scarce and we urge you to utilise the money properly. You need to have a very good system,” said Takao.
He, however, said Japan will not cut development assistance to Bangladesh despite the devastating tsunami that hit hard the major Asian economy in March this year. He cited example of Japan’s commitment to provide $670 million for construction of Padma Bridge.
“Tsunami and earthquake were very painful, but we learnt a lot about failure in policies,” said the chief representative of JICA in Dhaka.
He asked Bangladesh to learn from experiences. He also lamented poor maintenance of public properties, such as roads and power plants.
Takao said Bangladesh has an installed electricity capacity of more than 6,000 megawatts, but real output is only around 4,000 megawatts, mainly because of poor maintenance.
Despite all these things, he believes Bangladesh has a lot of potential to grow due to the China factor. In China, costs of doing business have gone up, Takao said.
sajjad@thedailystar.net