JAPAN International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has withdrawn from financing an optical fibre transmission network for Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL) citing corruption at high official places and repeated sabotage of the tender process apparently to give the contract to certain favoured bidder sidetracking the lowest bidder. News report on the incident has in fact divulged what is almost regularly taking place centering government development projects in which concerned project officials are swindling money under various cover. The thing is that they are not always reported in the media.
Noticeably, JICA came up with funding proposal of the alternative optical fibre cable network in the middle of 2011 and offered a loan of over US$ 13.35 million at a nominal interest of 0.1 percent, to be repayable over 30 years. But as the BTCL officials under Bangladesh Tele-Regulatory Commission (BTRC) opened the tender, they immediately started violating the procurement rules dilly-dallying the tender process. The problem arises as a Turkish firm turned out to be the lowest bidder while another bidder was the choice of the BTCL officials preparing the project. So the Project Director cancelled the bid and prepared for the second tender when the local agent of the Turkish firm took the matter to the court. It took almost three years when BTCL and the bidders remained locked in legal battles and such other maneuvering. A second bid was floated by the time but the Turkish firm appeared the lowest bidder again. Meanwhile the company officials reportedly used fictitious documents from project consultants to eliminate the Turkish bidder which annoyed JICA; which was looking for quick use of the fund and the execute the project. The Japanese donor asked BTCL on January 22 at the latest to open the third bid but things did not move forward.
It appears that JICA Chief in Dhaka informed the secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of his displeasure early this month saying he has talked about BTCL’s inability in the use of the fund and in the light of his consultation with the Japan government, he has decided to withdraw the fund. He has also hoped that the Ministry of Post and Tele-communication should learn a lesson from the withdrawal of the fund not to repeat such mistake again in future.
More surprising is that when the BTCL failed to successfully invite the tender, they even doubled the cost of the project and tried to eliminate the lowest bidder. An intelligence report alerted the government of the ill motives of the company officials. Now with the withdrawal of the JICA fund, they lost the scope of swindling public money, while Bangladesh lost the highly desired fund for a valuable project and on top of it lost the image to the Japanese who hate corruptions in development funding. It is advisable that the government must investigate the matter and punish the people’s responsible for it. Such crimes can’t go unnoticed.
Noticeably, JICA came up with funding proposal of the alternative optical fibre cable network in the middle of 2011 and offered a loan of over US$ 13.35 million at a nominal interest of 0.1 percent, to be repayable over 30 years. But as the BTCL officials under Bangladesh Tele-Regulatory Commission (BTRC) opened the tender, they immediately started violating the procurement rules dilly-dallying the tender process. The problem arises as a Turkish firm turned out to be the lowest bidder while another bidder was the choice of the BTCL officials preparing the project. So the Project Director cancelled the bid and prepared for the second tender when the local agent of the Turkish firm took the matter to the court. It took almost three years when BTCL and the bidders remained locked in legal battles and such other maneuvering. A second bid was floated by the time but the Turkish firm appeared the lowest bidder again. Meanwhile the company officials reportedly used fictitious documents from project consultants to eliminate the Turkish bidder which annoyed JICA; which was looking for quick use of the fund and the execute the project. The Japanese donor asked BTCL on January 22 at the latest to open the third bid but things did not move forward.
It appears that JICA Chief in Dhaka informed the secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of his displeasure early this month saying he has talked about BTCL’s inability in the use of the fund and in the light of his consultation with the Japan government, he has decided to withdraw the fund. He has also hoped that the Ministry of Post and Tele-communication should learn a lesson from the withdrawal of the fund not to repeat such mistake again in future.
More surprising is that when the BTCL failed to successfully invite the tender, they even doubled the cost of the project and tried to eliminate the lowest bidder. An intelligence report alerted the government of the ill motives of the company officials. Now with the withdrawal of the JICA fund, they lost the scope of swindling public money, while Bangladesh lost the highly desired fund for a valuable project and on top of it lost the image to the Japanese who hate corruptions in development funding. It is advisable that the government must investigate the matter and punish the people’s responsible for it. Such crimes can’t go unnoticed.
