I read with interest Saidur Rahman’s letter in Feedback (September 5) on Strategic Transport Plan of this government to solve Dhaka’s nightmarish transport problems. I agree with him that this plan is doomed to fail if the figures given by him on percentage of pedestrian and non-fuel transport are correct. But then if we are talking of success or failure of this STP, are we not putting the cart before the horse?
   If memory serves me right, didn’t this government tell us a year ago about what it was going to give us — underground train/and or elevated highway? What happened to that plan? Is this STP unveiled a week or so ago with some fanfare the same one announced a year ago? If so, what happened in the past one year? We would like to know. When the earlier plan was unveiled a year ago, the government gave the same impression that it was serious to solve Dhaka’s traffic problem. If this STP is a different plan, why should we believe that this government is serious this time around?
   As for those of us who wait like the thirsty crow for any piece of news to encourage us that our nightmare with Dhaka’s traffic will be over, hope is the only thing we are living with. But that notwithstanding, it is immoral of this government to promise us something that they know they will not be able to start. With this STP, it is more than 100 per cent a fact that this government has floated this STP for the sake of publicity and is hardly serious about it. Let me explain why.
   In the meeting that the chief adviser gave us this ‘gift’ of the STP to encourage us to hope, he also spoke of this government’s resolve to build highways, notably the Dhaka-Chittagong Four-Lane Highway. On this issue, I wrote earlier in Feedback. This Dhaka-Chittagong Highway, in its present shape, is causing critical damage to our economy as much as causing deaths of a large number of people every day. In its current state, it is nothing but a death trap. When this government came to office after 1/11, the then communications adviser cancelled in an absolutely wrong manner a tender for this Dhaka-Chittagong Four-Lane highway that was processed with all honesty by the past BNP government because of his perception that all that government had done was evil.
   A year afterwards when this tender was again floated, and with costs having escalated in hundreds of crores in between, this time it is the communications secretary doing to the nation what the former communications adviser had done. This time, after the tender was completed in perfectly honest way, the communications secretary has put a spanner into the tender and has stalled it (he wanted to cancel it but has been stopped by a court order) based on a tender clause that the tender process (conducted by the Roads and Highways Department that works as an attached office to his ministry) did not follow the 28-day time limit for Performance Guarantee that he alleged has not allowed foreign companies a fair chance to compete. The tender that General Matin cancelled was held under the same terms on the Performance Guarantee and that time majority of the pre-qualified foreign companies entered their bids. This time they did not do so simply because they did not feel comfortable because of reasons that are political and nothing to do with the time limit. In other words, the flimsy reason upon which he has put the spanner is totally irrelevant and has jeopardised a project that has to be undertaken. But then, the delay in undertaking it will not only escalate costs but cause innumerable deaths of innocent lives.
   When a chief adviser is so inept against a communications secretary, it does not need a crystal ball to predict that the STP is just tall talk. All initiatives of this government on mega projects have so far been merely propaganda. We need to look at power sector of which this government has been so critical of the BNP for not adding even one KW of power to the national grid and has itself been as useless.
   So Saidur Rahman should not spare his thoughts for the STP for it has come from a chief adviser whose words mean nothing.
   Rashed Ahmed
   Gulshan, Dhaka

NBR chairman’s observations about container loads of rubbish imported at Chittagong port, a front page news of August 27, deserves to be follow-up by the media. The reasons behind this could be far more than what meets the eye. However, I do not go along with the chairman’s suspicion about sabotage.
   I believe a quick, detailed and thorough investigation is of topmost priority. First, it should be investigated the PSI (pre-shipment inspection) companies, particularly at the port of shipment, and through them of the exporting company. Their roots, actions, activities and all links have to be unearthed. A similar investigation of the importers, their C&F agents and their inter-relationship needs to be identified and established. Unfortunately, nothing on these lines was reported in the news item.
   The persons connected with the CSS Corporation (BD) Ltd. and Haji Taher Ali Industries should be arrested immediately. Why is the caretaker government not active in this deed?
   SA Mansoor
   Dhaka