NEWS reports in several national dailies said the Library Authorities of Jatiya Sangsad have spent over Tk 4,17,000 for procurement of 50 books; which are in fact photocopies of pirated books and printed on sub-standard papers. These are in fact old miscellaneous books sold in Nilkhet bookstores in the city at nominal prices. But to one’s utter disbelief the concerned library authorities showed the cost of three such books at Tk 91,000 while several other books were shown in different names and purchased at different cost.
Even dishonest Sangsad officials did not hesitate to show complimentary books on purchase list, which were donated by a private university to Jatiya Sangsad Library. These were duly sealed by the varsity on book pages but they showed them as books purchased and payment made for them. We believe the Jatiya Sangsad Library has missed a chance by resorting to massive corruption when it could buy serious books on contemporary politics and developmental issues to be helpful to lawmakers and researchers now or in future.
It is gratifying that the mischief has been detected in preliminary investigation into procurement of books. The report has quoted Deputy Speaker of Jatiya Sangsad Advocate Fazle Rabbi Miah as saying that he has been utterly surprised by the incident and called for further investigation and punitive action against the culprits. In our view Jatiya Sangsad must set an example to shred the bad name.
It appears that the Jatiya Sangsad officials had earlier decided to spend the unused fund of a UN Project for strengthening parliament’s capacity that ended last year to purchase books. But the dishonest officials then collected those hefty useless books and got the fund released to share money among them. A supplier very close to a senior library official carried out the procurement without any tender.
What appears quite frustrating is that corruption and misuse of public fund which are flooding the nation with so-called claim for development is also ruthlessly destroying public life. It is not even sparing the Jatiya Sangsad Library. It also made us suspicious about the quality of other books collected over the past years to enrich the Sangsad Library.
In fact public money is now treated to make easy fortune —be it legally or otherwise at every place. It is no more a secret that money is also traded in and around the Parliament building mainly as a tool of holding control on politics. Ministers and MPs are using public money with hardly any transparency and accountability to people they claim to be representing. The corruption in library procurement is not something different either.
It is sad that the procurements were made flouting procurement rules and without focusing on serious books written by leading thinkers and authors. One could at least hope that these books could be part of a rich collection and useful one day, if not now to bring about qualitative change in our politics.
