When money spent for drains goes into it

Last night I was watching a private channel interviewing a number of renowned architects and engineers about the growing incidence of water-logging in Dhaka. Coupled with gross mismanagement all of them blamed the pointless and inefficient building of box-culverts around the city. Easily understood, that these concrete structures failed to serve their purposes in tackling random logging in the city, but the question, however, what were these experts doing when these box-culverts were being built?

“Moreover, more than any time before, it is only in the wake of the city dwellers' unimaginable suffering in the last couple of months which has brought the topic in the limelight; otherwise the apparent curse of these circled concrete structures would have remained largely un-discussed. The box- culverts are in fact, just one of the prime reasons.”

Moreover, more than any time before, it is only in the wake of the city dwellers' unimaginable suffering in the last couple of months which has brought the topic in the limelight; otherwise the apparent curse of these circled concrete structures would have remained largely un-discussed. The box- culverts are in fact, just one of the prime reasons.      
According to latest news reports , Dhaka WASA, Water Development Board and our  two City Corporations have jointly spent some 2,000 crore Taka in the name of building and upgrading the water drainage system of Dhaka.
Moreover, the money was spent under the categories of building and maintaining small and medium drainage facilities, digging and cleaning of canals, installing of new pump stations and of course , building box-culverts. However, the money spent in the name of upgrading the city's drainage system has visibly and also provably went in vain ( read in the drains).
Otherwise, why the city-dwellers had to suffer so miserably during this year's pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons? Why so many parts of the city still continues to experience frequent water-logging here and there? Also which are the canals those were cleaned. There were surely some eye-wash attempts in cleaning up the city's canals, but in reality nothing was done, let alone digging of new canals. On the topic of newly installed pump stations -- they have more than just failed in pumping out rain water.
And why only blame the box-culverts when most of them are jammed with hundreds of tons of indiscriminately dumped garbage.  
Instead of blaming round-shaped concrete structures, it is time to hold the stated three authorities accountable for their irresponsible and unaccountable spending.
The point in general -- the three authorities should not be allowed to get away without detailed explanations. That said -- in place of ensuring smooth outflow of rain water the money spent in the name of various development programmes has shockingly created more blockages.
The investigation , if there is one, should not focus entirely on how was the back-to-back years' development budgets for the drainage system were spent , but also identify the exact individuals concerned to have planned, designed and worked on our drainage facilities.
The erstwhile Dhaka City Corporation alone has reportedly spent a mammoth BDT 1, 270 crore, only to have caused prolonged water-logging in the city this year. The other two have spent nearly BDT 730 crore, but the million dollar question -- what result did the expenditure deliver? In the last two and half years not even one new drain was built. The truth is -- the three have all miserably failed to address Dhaka's clogged and insufficient drainage system.      
The culture of chaotic spending and looting public money has been going for too long now and part of it was reflected on the latest judicial verdict some ten days ago. There are enough reasons to suspect -- bulk of the 2, 000 crore was looted in various capacities. This writer won't be surprised if much of it was anyhow siphoned-off out of the country by the ones who had looted it.
It is right now to get hold of the engineers, project directors, construction firms and officers concerned for carrying out the various medium and small-scale projects by the three public organisations. Also much of the development funds are reported to have been spent in the last eight years, so the responsibility for investigating into the questionable spending hugely falls in the shoulders of the ruling party in power.
It is not only a mere matter of investigating into the misuse or abuse of government infrastructure development funds, it has much to do to address the organised nature of bureaucratic corruption taking place within our state-run development organisations for decades. If such a big amount of reckless public expenditure is not investigated, we fear corrupt government officials will loot even more in the future, and by inflicting more public suffering.                
Having his newspaper office located in Motijheel's commercial hub, this writer has been one of the worst victims of recent water-logging in that area. For four consecutive days commuting in the post-rain hours became nearly impossible, traffic jams became horrendously long and professional commitments were broken regularly; loss of time, energy and money seemed unbearable. Trousers and shoes often got wet with greyish dirty water, a mix of sewerage filth and rain water. Let's not talk about the numerable ordeals of commuting over water logged and invisible pot-holed roads. Who else could have been more befitting to have penned this piece?  

The writer is Assistant Editor of
the Daily Observer and can be reached at
[email protected]