A NATIONAL daily on Saturday reported that the Deputy Commissioners of nearly half of the country’s 64 districts continue disregarding the government’s directive to upload information on allocation and disbursement of relief and financial assistance on their respective websites. The Disaster Management and Relief Ministry has long been asking DCs to publish the information on the district web portals to ensure transparency and accountability.
But a scanning of their portals until July 7 shows only 30 have uploaded such information while others have ignored it and rather flooded their website with testimony of local ruling party leaders and businessmen who made mostly politically motivated contributions in relief work during the Covid crisis period.
There is nothing to wonder as to why DCs failed to ensure transparency and accountability for public goods mainly meant for the poor during this crisis period. The whole system of government is based on lawlessness and unaccountability.
In a government of bureaucrats the real power lies with the power of bureaucrats. There is nothing to be appalled. We must know our hypocrisy is not putting blaming where the blame lies. Big dacoits are worshipped but petty thieves are unforgiven. Another peculiarity of Bengali culture is that our educated but selfish Bengalis never change their duplicity in character. The cultural ethos about making sacrifices has never been so easily betrayed.
Take the case of Shahed the Chairman of Regent Hospital who has been making money through torture, cheating and supplying girls and bribing powerful people. Now when he sought help from the home minister the help was declined and he was asked to surrender. Once he had been special to police and RAB, and they used to help him immediately. Besides, the government itself is cracking for its role model of corruption.
Corruption and misrule feed on each other. Corruption has a way of exposing itself. Even the highest level of corruption will reveal itself. It is in the nature of corruption.
It is alleged that the DCs do not take public interest seriously. The DCs as public servants are supposed to carry out orders of popularly elected public representatives such as ministers. Do we have elected ministers? This truth is known more to the bureaucrats who organised the election cheating.
Again it is wrong to blame the DCs for not protecting public interest where public interests do not count to those who govern.
