THE government organizations are now almost dysfunctional due to huge mismanagement, widespread corruption and politicization. Road Transport, Railways, Biman, BTRC, BTCL, Post Office, Teletalk, Health sector, Educational institutions – almost everything are now facing multifaceted problems. It is true that, the poor state of these sectors do not differ with the change of governments, rather gets worse day by day.
Bangladesh Biman has lost its reputation due to huge mismanagement and corruption. The private airlines like US Bangla, Regent Air, Novo Air are also not doing well. Biman has miserably failed to maintain a stable timetable in its domestic and international routes. It is buying unfit planes for unnecessary reason when they can buy modern ones. Railway is going to the same way. Its service is very poor. However, it is maintaining a stable timetable for last three years.
Corruption and mismanagement have made BTCL a losing concern for many years while private phone companies are gaining profit from the same sector. Even though landlines are still used by many people but BTCL is losing its consumer each year. The hospitals run by the government have maintained a dirty and unhealthy environment, poor quality of food and services.
People do not like Post Office; rather they prefer Courier Service, though the government is trying to revive this sector. BRTC spends money for vehicles to improve the service. But the corrupt employees sell the important parts of the vehicles. Most of the government officials and employees have submerged themselves in corruption.
The government has no worry that the public institutions have becoming dysfunctional. And it has also no worry for increasing corruption at all levels. We know, corruption is a key challenge against development. Whereas corruption in our country is so deep and wide at both micro and macro levels that it threatens smooth development process often. At every stage, corruption has an in-built bias against the poor, disadvantaged and low-income groups. Here, the marginal people are directly affected by the increased cost of public services for bribery and limited access to services because of lack of capacity to pay bribe.
We know corruption is increasingly linked to violation of human rights and breach of rule of law. At the same time, corruption causes underperformance in governance and undermines the government’s ability to deliver justified decision. We think it is the time to check the corruption which is hindering the real economic progress and development.
