That the government of Awami League Jatiya-Party coalition is incompetent, if not insincere, to devise and implement development programmes has surfaced again with the latest report of the implementation, monitoring and evaluation division of the government released on Monday. According to the government report, as reproduced with comments by New Age on Tuesday, 215 development projects out of a total of 244 remained incomplete in the 2011–2012 financial year. Clearly, only 12 per cent of the total projects under the annual development programme that were scheduled to be finished in the stipulated period of 2011-2012 financial year were completed. This news is quite disturbing for any ‘developing’ country that badly needs a higher rate of economic growth and an equitable distribution of wealth to change the lot of the people. One wonders how leaders and activists of a governing party can continuously be so loud about their successes as those of the ruling Awami League are now doing almost every day when it practically fails to implement 88 per cent of the development projects in a year.
The government officials concerned have found out, as the report shows, the reasons behind the failures. Inadequate and delayed release of financial resources, delayed disbursement of foreign aid, complexities of land accusation, inability to use resources, lack of supervision and control by the implementing agencies concerned, lack of coordination and cooperation among the government departments concerned, revision of project contents, repeated transfers of project directors, corruption and negligence of the agencies and inefficiency of the officials concerned are the reasons behind the failures of the timely implementation of the development projects. If we accept the identifications of the reasons for failures to be correct, one would not take more than a moment to realise that there remains the prime reason, which is vital but not mentioned in the report, behind the massive failures in carrying out the development programmes and that is the complete failure of the political authorities presiding over all the departments in question. It is the responsibility of the political authorities to make sure that financial resources are mobilised in time, unable and inefficient public servants are removed, well-coordinated monitoring efforts are put in place and frequent transfers of project directors are not done, et cetera to get development works finished by the stipulated time. But no ministers have so far been removed by the highest authority on charge of incompetence or insincerity or both, or no public servant has been punished on the grounds of inefficiency in more than three years and a half of the regime although many officials have been ‘punished’ in many ways on partisan, political considerations.
However, the bleak picture of the failures of the development programmes only reflects on the incompetence and insincerity of the political authorities of the state, for which the infrastructural development is slowed down, growth of national economy is hampered, and subsequently the entire populace, particularly the poor, are to suffer for years to come. Before the people punish the government in the next general elections for multidimensional failures, the highest political authority of the government should take a chance to survive people’s electoral wrath by way of replacing the errant ministers and officials with the comparatively better ones. The sooner the better, both for the government and the people.