Barishal City Corporation ranks last in LGRD review
In a blow to citizen morale, Barishal City Corporation has placed lowest in the evaluation of annual performance contracts under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives (LGRD).
The information was published in an office order signed by AKM Mizanur Rahman, deputy secretary of Local Government Department (LGD) of the LGRD ministry on September 14.
Marked out of 100, BCC scored 29.40 in the annual performance agreement report and evaluation.
In the evaluation, held among 20 departments under LGD across the country, Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) stood first with a score of 98.40. Meanwhile, Sylhet City Corporation became second among all organisations with 96.46 -- it is the first among the city corporations.
The report was based on a performance agreement signed by the 20 departments and city corporations under LGD for the fiscal year 2019-20. The evaluation took into consideration project completion rates of the agencies.
BCC higher-ups have attributed the results to the under-performance of its engineering department and those engaged in preparing project profiles. They said lack of expertise and weakness of these officials lead to the bad evaluations.
The city corporation has already given executive engineer Md Anisuzzaman a show-cause notice last month, alleging his negligence in preparing a project proposal submitted to the LGRD ministry recently, confirmed BCC Chief Executive Officer Md Israil Hossain.
"We acknowledge the weakness and incompetence of the BCC project profile team. We have already showed cause them. Hopefully this situation will not exist in the future," Mostafa Zaman, personal secretary of the BCC mayor, said on his behalf.
Contacted, Md Anisuzzaman acknowledged that some projects could not be finished in time, there were other projects that might have been completed if they were approved.
He cited a development project as an example. "We submitted the project with a budget of Tk 1,182 crore to the LGRD ministry. After receiving their advise five times, we revised the plans are submitted a final project amounting to Tk1,100 crore. But then the development project was canceled in the Ecnec meeting held in January this year due to various reasons."
"We resubmitted the project, cutting down the budget to Tk 683 crores in February, but as of this day, we are not aware of its status," he added. If such complications did not arise, the performance of the city corporation wouldn't look as bad on paper, Anisuzzaman said.
Upon hearing the news, residents of the city demanded that the city corporation identify weaknesses of its operations and start considering citizens' opinions.
"BCC development plans do not reflect the citizens' demands," claimed Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal Barishal district convener Imran Habib Rumon.
Shah Sajeda, convener of "Socheton Nagorik Committee", said there was a time when Barishal was a pioneer in education and culture. But the glory days have started to fade as the city is being deprived of development due to lack of proper planning.
"No major development projects of BCC has been implemented for the last two years, while implementation of old projects is very slow," she said.
Development organiser Rafiqul Alam said, "That BCC is at the bottom of the list proves the development of the city has come to a standstill. It proves the incompetence of the city corporation."
Although Barishal is a city corporation, 90 percent of its roads are dilapidated and in broken condition, he said.
Comments