The Anti-Corruption Commission has identified 22 sources of corruption plaguing the state-run Titas Gas for years. Illegal connections, re-connection of illegal lines, meter tampering and bribery in providing legal connections are major sources of corruption there.
Showing artificial system loss, giving illegal connections to boilers and generators and changing category of customers are also among the 22 possible sources of graft in Titas Gas Transmission & Distribution Company Limited, the ACC has found.
The corruption watchdog gave 12 recommendations, including introducing pre-paid meter, conducting surprise drives and imposing higher fines on illegal connection-holders, as well as taking action against corrupt officials. Highest corruption takes place through illegal connections.
A report of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the Planning Ministry says around six percent system loss at Titas happens due to illegal connections. Some unscrupulous Titas employees in collaboration with some technically sound people gave these illegal connections, especially at night, in exchange for bribe. Often, people face difficulties in getting legal connections or legalising their unlawful connections because of a syndicate that does not benefit from legal connections.
There are no specific guidelines to provide connection, which promotes corruption. So this practice must be stopped. Using an Electronic Volume Corrector, which records gas pressure, will be helpful for Titas to stop providing gas to industrial places at the expense of domestic ones. Officials must not be posted at industrial belts for more than a year as it would allow them to create syndicates and then indulge in corruption.
Investigators have also found that the existing irregularities in procurement and bidding process create scopes for corruption. So it seems that Titas remains a sinkhole of corruption as there is no momentum from the higher authorities to stop the corrupt practices, as it goes against their vested interests.
To prevent officials from abusing their power a system of checks and balances must be instituted to stop such corruption. Vague, obsolete and opaque rules and regulations must be discarded to prevent such action from occurring repeatedly.
Recidivism in such matters must be punished harshly so that miscreant officials face the full brunt of the law. If the administration takes firm actions then it will be possible to stop such corruption forever.
We do appreciate the move of TIB for finding corruption in Titas. But what’s true that corruption in government departments like Titas is nothing new.
In fact, corruption is everywhere; each and every department of the public sector is ridden with corruption. Could TIB identify only one single department in Bangladesh where there is no corruption?
A culture of corruption has been developed in the country in the recent days. The midnight stage-fixing by the corrupt civil bureaucracy and police for reestablishing the corrupt administration has paved the way for corrupts to make their fortune.
There is apparently no rule of law in the country and for that reason; the judiciary also cannot work properly. Most of the court orders are seen not executed properly. The result is that, corruption becomes widespread.
Please for the honesty’s sake let us admit that whole the state machinery is steeped in corruption. Corruption is the justification for continuing in power. It is one thing for TIB to expose generally corruption, but it is entirely different to identify the corrupt ones and punish them.
Even the Anti-Corruption Commission is also under political pressure. They cannot go against big officials without prior clearance from the Prime Minister. Corruption is here to stay.
