Project costs are increased for corruption

IN the latest effort, the executive committee of the National Economic Council on Tuesday made upward revision to the construction of the third terminal at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport by Tk 7,788.59 even before starting the project. The ECNEC, presided over by Prime Minister, approved the proposal placed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism to increase the project cost to Tk 21,399.06 crore from Tk 13,611.47 crore. Not only that, the deadline of the project which is scheduled to be to be expired in June 2022 has been extended up to June 2025. Newspapers reported that the ECNEC also approved upward revision of the construction of Bangladesh Chancery Complex in Islamabad for the third time as the new project stood at Tk 79.86 crore from original Tk 29.80 crore. The project, being implemented by the Foreign Ministry since 2007, was scheduled to be completed in 2010. Now the new deadline of the project has been set by the ECNEC on 2022.
It’s an old trend in our country to hike the budgetary costs of projects – from mini to mega – only to make benefitted a section of people who are close to ruling high-ups. To make the practice easier, the project implementation time is used to be extended. We have seen the same scenarios during the tenures of all subsequent governments. But this time it has crossed all the limits. Why a project in a foreign country would take so many years to be implemented and its cost be increased 2.5 times more despite land is given by host country?
Recently, we have seen the involvement of some leaders of ruling party’s different wings in tender and construction businesses. But the bureaucrats responsible for swallowing big amount of project money still remain behind the scene. The government must be careful about spending public money. Stop expanding project costs by increasing time limit unnecessarily.